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gale xtcetitetinial pnhlmtiQm 

INDIA OLD AND NEW 



gale I3(centennml publications 

With the approval of the President and Fellows 
of Tale University^ a series of volumes has been 
prepared by a number of the Professors and In- 
structors^ to be issued in connection with the 
Bicentennial Anniversary^ as a partial indica- 
tion of the character of the studies in which the 
University teachers are engaged. 

This series of volumes is respectfully dedicated to 

K)^t ^ratiuates! of t^e mniUersit^ 



INDIA 
OLD AND NEW 



WITH A 



MEMORIAL ADDRESS 



i BY 

E. WASHBURN HOPKINS, M.A., Ph.D., 

Prof essor of Sanskrit at Yale University 



NEW YORK: CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 

LONDON: EDWARD ARNOLD 

1901 



■fHI: <-!BRARY OF 
Two CoHiES Received 

DEC, 1 1901 

CSPV^IGHT ENTRY 

CLASS '^' XXo. No. 



o©pY a 



C<}pyright, 1901, 
By Yale University 



Published^ December, iqoi 






TTNIVERSITY PRESS • JOHN WILSON 
AND SON • CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A. 



PREFACE. 

Of the eleven separate papers here brought together, three 
have previously been published in full, — that on Guilds in 
the Yale Review, May and August, 1898; that on Land- 
tenure in the Political Science Quarterly, December, 1898; 
and that on Gods, under the title, " How Gods are made in 
India," in the New World, March, 1899. The editors of these 
journals have kindly granted me permission to republish the 
articles. I am also indebted to the editor of the Forum for 
the same courtesy in respect to the political paragraphs in the 
account of the Plague which, excerpted from the unpublished 
original, appeared in the Forum, August, 1897. The essay 
on Land-tenure, owing to Mr. Baden-Powell's last book, has 
been changed in some regards ; and, as editor of the Journal 
of the Oriental Societ}^, I have given myself permission to 
add to the article on Gods a complementary paper, which 
was published in the Journal the same year under the title, 
"Economics of Primitive Religion." The rest of the vol- 
ume consists of addresses delivered before sundry general 
audiences during the last two years. One, that on Christ 
in India, was first read before a small club in 1898, and 
afterwards expanded to its present form as parts of lectures 
delivered at the Harvard Summer School of Theology and 
the Yale Divinity School, in the summer of 1900 and spring 
of 1901, respectively. 



viii PREFACE. 



Since this book is not intended for a special public, I have 
made no attempt to give a scientific transliteration of Sanskrit 
letters, except in the rare cases where a whole text is cited. 
There seems to be no reason why a popular exposition should 
retain diacritical signs which are meaningless to the reader, 
or mark quantitative values in Sanskrit vowels any more than 
in the Greek. Since we write Athene and Electra, we may 
properly write Rama and Krishna, as the confusion of quan- 
tities will scarcely disturb the specialist, and will disturb the 
non-specialist still less. My simple rule has been to give the 
simplest form ; but in the index, and here and there in the 
notes, to satisfy a possible curiosity, I have added to this 
popular form a more precise rendering of its phonetic values. 
Anglo-Indian terms like cherry-merry have been kept as they 
are written in Anglo-Indian, — that is to say, as they are 
sometimes written, for the same book or newspaper will fre- 
quently transcribe the same original in two or three ways. 
As Sanskrit c is pronounced like cJi in church, I have 
preferred 1c in such words as Kutch ; but in other respects I 
have not tried to be pedantically consistent at the cost of 
clearness, and have, for example, written Poona, as it is usu- 
ally written, not Puna, as it logically should be written by 
one who, out of the Anglo-Indian versions of the word for 
town, pore, poor, pur, selects the one nearest to the native 
form. The Sanskrit sonant aspirates hJi, dh, gh, are pro- 
nounced as in ahJior, adhere, leghorn; the corresponding 
surds, ph, th, hh, as in uphill, at-home, oak-hall. 

OCTOBEE, 1901. 



TABLE OF COKTEKTS. 

Page 

Memorial Address in Honor of Professor Salisbury . 3 

The Eig Veda 23 

The Early Lyric Poetry of India 36 

Sanskrit Epic Poetry 67 

A Study of Gods 92 

Christ in India 120 

Ancient and Modern Hindu Guilds 169 

Land-tenure in India 206 

The Cause and Cure of Famine 230 

The Plague 265 

New India 333 

Index 337 



MEMORIAL ADDRESS 



IN HONOR OF 



PROFESSOR SALISBURY. 



EDWARD ELBRIDGE SALISBURY. 

The subject of the following memoir was born April 6, 1814, in Boston, 
Mass. He was the son of Josiah and Abigail (Breese) Salisbury. On 
his father's side he was of English ancestry ; on his mother's, of Hugue- 
not descent. He was graduated from Yale in 1832. He passed four 
years thereafter in study, particularly theological study, at New Haven. 
In 1836 he married his cousin, Abigail Salisbury Phillips, daughter of 
Edward Phillips of Boston, and immediately afterward went to Europe, 
where he spent nearly four years in the study of Oriental languages. 
He was a pupil of de Sacy and Garcin de Tassy in Paris, and of Bopp 
in Berlin. Soon after his return to America, in 1841, he was appointed 
Professor of Arabic and Sanskrit at Yale. He accepted the appointment, 
but did not at once assume the duties of the office, as he wished to spend 
another year in study. He therefore went to Germany in 1842, and spent 
a winter reading Sanskrit with Lassen in Bonn and Burnouf in Paris. He 
surrendered his Sanskrit work to his former pupil, W. D. Whitney, in 
1854, at the same time establishing the Sanskrit professorship by mak- 
ing a permanent provision for the chair. The Arabic chair he retained 
till 1856, when his official connection with the University ceased. The 
years 1857 and 1870 he spent in travel in Europe. Professor Salisbury's 
first wife died in 1869. In 1871 he married the daughter of Judge Charles 
J. McCurdy of Lyme, Connecticut, Evelyn McCurdy, who survives him. 
Professor Salisbury died in his eighty-seventh year, February 5, 1901. 
He was a life-member of the American Oriental Society for nearly sixty 
years. From 1846 to 1857 he was its corresponding secretary, and 
president of the Society from 1863 to 1866, and again from 1873 to 1880. 
This memorial was presented February 16, 1901, at Yale University. 



MEMORIAL ADDRESS IN HONOR OF 
PROFESSOR SALISBURY. 

It is fitting that on the death of a man who has lived revered 
we should pause in our busy work and for an hour at least 
make piety our occupation. Whether such a token of respect 
mean anything to him we honor, we cannot know ; but for 
ourselves it is a gratification to pay the tribute, though this 
be merely to recall his past. Yet what better tribute can we 
offer to the memory of any man than with thankful thoughts 
to look back upon his life, knowing that he has spent it well 
and that not age alone has made him venerable ? For so his 
life becomes its own encomium. 

But to review completely the career even of a contemporary 
is not easy, and it is more difficult in the case of one who has 
labored chiefly during years so long gone by that they seem to 
belong to an epoch already far distant. To envisage such a 
life, to recognize its true value, we must begin with seeking 
to understand the environment in which it started. 

Let us, then, consider first of all the conditions under which 
Mr. Salisbury rose to be the leader of Oriental scholarship in 
this country. For in awaking and directing the energies of 
those under him, as in opening to his colleagues in America 
vistas of which they had been practically ignorant, he well 
deserves this title of leader. It was a time when the intellec- 
tual activities of the country, in so far as they concerned 
themselves with the Orient at all, were busied almost exclu- 
sively with missionary work abroad and with the wisdom 
of the Hebrews here. Indian and Arabic literatures were 
ignored well-nigh completely, and Persian antiquities inter- 
ested none. There was no medium of communication between 



4 MEMORIAL ADDRESS IN HONOR OF 

Oriental scholars, neither a society for mutual intercourse and 
exchange of ideas nor a journal for the propagation of new 
knowledge. Such a thing as a Sanskrit professorship was 
unknown in this country and scarcely known elsewhere. It 
is true that Oriental scholarship had already been placed upon 
a firm basis, and that, for example, our own President Woolsey 
studied Arabic abroad in the twenties. But there was no one 
in this country who had entered con amore into the newly 
blazed path of study, nor was there yet, even in Europe, any 
general recognition on the part of the Universities of the 
intrinsic value of Hindu and Iranian literatures. To wake 
an interest at home there was required some one who should 
primarily appreciate the value of Oriental research, and then, 
quite as important a point, make others appreciate it. 

The man was needed and he came ; a scholar by instinct, 
who, self-impelled, sought his own training and got it from 
the best masters. To do this, as is clear from the conditions I 
have just outlined, it was imperative to seek teachers abroad. 
When he returned, after he had acquired from Bopp, Garcin 
de Tassy, and de Sacy the knowledge he had sought, he came 
back the only scholar of his kind in America. 

Let me not be misunderstood, however, for I would not 
seem to exaggerate. Mr. Salisbury was at that time the only 
scholar of his kind in America, but he was not a Rama com- 
parable only with Rama, in the sense of being a great special- 
ist, a recognized maker of science. He himself would have 
smiled gently at the ascription of such futile praise. He 
never tried, for example, to take the place later occupied by 
Mr. Whitney. His work was not such as to control the 
course of scientific inquiry ; but he was leader, and at first 
unique leader, not only in being best fitted, but in actively 
calling others to Oriental work. Moreover, his taste was 
literary and historical rather than philological in the narrower 
sense. But when our philological work is completed, then the 
old knowers of literature will appear more clearly than now 
as precursors over this new province, and we shall not ask 
what strictly linguistic work Mr. Salisbury accomplished, or 



PROFESSOR SALISBURY. 5 

whether he edited any Sanskrit texts ; but we shall wonder 
the more at the ripe scholarship which understood and appre- 
ciated Sanskrit literature, and not only Sanskrit but Arabic 
literature ; which scholarship, as a labor of love or duty, did 
even edit Arabic texts ; while also, in a missionary spirit, it 
expounded Persian cuneiform inscriptions ; and yet found its 
chief pleasure not in such work as this, but in absorbing 
through the medium of the literature the life and thought of 
antiquity — so thoroughly that it was able to give a clear 
synopsis of special linguistic work ; so broadly that it com- 
prehended with appreciation the characteristics of two great 
and dissimilar nationalities. " Professor of Arabic and San- 
skrit," — that is a title as incongruous to our modern ears as 
would be professor of Greek and Chinese, He who bore 
such a title bore more than our specialists would venture to 
assume, even in name ; but he bore it in reality, worthily, 
conscientiously, as he did all things, and despite the increas- 
ing weight of the intellectual burden, though he eventually 
abandoned both titles, he ever retained his interest in these 
two fields and took note as far as it was possible of what 
was doing in both. 

Mr. Salisbury, though not a specialist, yet shared, as I have 
said, in the more recondite labors of his profession. And I 
would emphasize the fact that in so doing he never failed 
to be scrupulously scientific in his method ; nor did ever the 
genial plea of " having a more general interest in the subject " 
serve him as excuse for slovenly work. But there is more 
to add, for Mr. Salisbury not only entered into abstruse sub- 
jects, but, standing midway in age between President Woolsey 
and Professor James Hadley, he joined with them in that 
uplifting of professorial aims which leads the scholar to look 
on investigation and the publication of the results of study, 
not merely as works of supererogation, but as a requisite 
concomitant of his professorship. But what at that far-distant 
day was this elevation of aims? It was nothing less than 
the creation in America of the University ideal in contrast 
with that of the school and college. So I think it is no little 



6 MEMORIAL ADDRESS IN HONOR OF 

glory to Mm that, favored by fortune to be beyond the need 
of toil, Mr. Salisbury should not only have devoted himself 
to unremitting labor from the outset of his career, but also 
have been foremost in publishing the results of his special 
studies in stimulative essays ; and it was no accident, but the 
logical outcome of this, that, to his own honor, but also to the 
honor of Yale, he virtually made himself the first " University 
Professor " in America ; for such from its inception was really 
his academic position. 

Among the cherished possessions of my library is a volume, 
the Miscellanea published by Mr. Salisbury between 1840 
and 1876, from the age of twenty-six to sixty-two. I prize 
it, not as a mine of information, but again not merely because 
of personal associations ; for it is at the same time an index 
of the growth of Oriental studies during the last century, 
and a reflex, not without its lesson, of the mind from which 
these essays sprang. There are here no technical studies, no 
statistics, almost no investigation in the confined sense we 
give to that word to-day. The articles are in general 
descriptive, resumes of knowledge, maps of thought. Mr. 
Salisbury's scientific bent was, as I have said, pre-eminently 
historical. He loved, moreover, to survey from the height 
the road made by others, rather than dig at that road him- 
self. For this reason he has left little in the way of subtle 
monographs, but many comprehensive reviews. Yet just 
this attitude of mind, when such a mind devotes itself to in- 
struction, is especially valuable, not only in giving a fasci- 
natingly broad view at the outset to the student who is to 
toil upon the road of progress or the field of research, but in 
revealing to him, as he advances, the bearing of each form 
of work toward every other. 

But you must not think that Mr. Salisbury, in rather 
avoiding the technique of science, lacked a just estimate of 
this side of scholarship. His was not the complacent mind 
that boasts of breadth and betrays its narrowness by belittling 
the word of the specialist. In fact, from Mr. Salisbury's 
Inaugural Address I think it is clear that he intended to 



PROFESSOR SALISBURY. 7 

devote himself as a duty to details of study ; but this would 
have been impossible in his case even had he possessed the 
temperament. For when the appointment to the professor- 
ship of Arabic and Sanskrit was made, that bipartite province 
could still be controlled by one man. But almost synchron- 
ously with the appointment began to appear in both fields a 
series of studies so special and elaborate, each province be- 
sides became so enlarged, that no single scholar could longer 
command it. A general knowledge of what was going on in 
each was all that any one could attain unless he sacrificed 
one of the two. 

I should like, however, to read you an extract from this 
Inaugural of 1843, when the young scholar of twenty-nine 
years was just entering upon his life-work, and I think you 
will admit not only that he had a generous conception of 
scientific work, but also that he intended to exercise all the 
functions of a scholar. After " sketching the department of 
Sanskrit and Arabic literatures," he says : " You perceive, 
gentlemen, that my field of study is broad and requires much 
minuteness of research in order to know it thoroughly. I 
profess only to have set foot upon it, to have surveyed its 
extent, to have resolved to spend my days in its research, 
believing as I do that it may yield rich and valuable fruits, 
and to do what may be in my power to attract others into it, 
though I am aware I must expect to labor, for a time, almost 
alone." And let me add, as characteristic of the modesty 
and breadth of the true scholar, the words that follow these : 
" I would earnestly ask of you all to bear with my weaknesses, 
to be patient with my slowness in doing all that I ought to 
do to honor my place, and to allow me to find refuge from 
the feeling of loneliness and discouragement in your sympa- 
thizing recognition that each department of knowledge is 
kindred with every other, — the sentiment which should 
pervade every great Institution of learning, — and which I 
would myself cultivate, while I shall eagerly seek to add 
brightness to my flickering lamp from the shining lights 
about me." 



8 MEMORIAL ADDRESS IN HONOR OF 

In a note to this address, besides the arguments adduced in 
the Inaugural itself, an additional reason for the study of 
Sanskrit is offered in the missionary's want of proper native 
words with which to present the claims of Christianity, a want 
that can be filled better by scholars in this country than by 
the busy missionary in India, " and thus might one at home 
with his Sanskrit serve the living God." On the side of Mr. 
Salisbury's character which is shown in his simple Christian 
spirit I have no competence to speak. This is the part of 
those who have been privileged to know him longer and 
more intimately. But it was so much in and of him that I 
cannot ignore it altogether even in speaking of his position 
as a scholar, and this quaint note on serving God with Sans- 
krit is perhaps sufQciently expressive to show how to him a 
useful life was inseparable from one of religious endeavor. 

The year after this Inaugural was written, the young pro- 
fessor, then just thirty, read at the Meeting of the American 
Oriental Society held on May 28, 1844, a long paper on the 
history of Buddhism. He had " heard a Memoir on the Ori- 
gin of Buddhism read by M. Burnouf before the French 
Institute in the spring of 1843," and fresh from this personal 
impression made by the great foreign scholar, he who had 
heard Burnouf attempted the task of inspiring others with 
his own interest. Such independent observations as are 
strewn through this long study are thoroughly sound. They 
show, not new knowledge of detail, but insight. Many of 
them are such as to pass unnoticed to-day, but that is only 
because we know more than was known in 1844. Of this 
sort, for example, is the remark that Buddhist doctrines are 
an outgrowth of Brahmanism, a statement which only subse- 
quent work could verify. Another point touched upon is in 
the refutation on four formal grounds of the theory that 
Buddha was the creation of a philosophical mythology, a dis- 
cussion which anticipates by decades recent investigations 
and theories. 

The studious care of the writer of this article is shown in 
the many references to works consulted by him, German, 



PROFESSOR SALISBURY. 9 

French, and English, up to the time of its delivery. Some 
of these works are now classics ; at that time the young 
scholar had just seen them fresh from the press and thought 
they " promised to be valuable." It is of this paper that Mr. 
Whitney said that it was the first really scientific paper pre- 
sented to the Oriental Society. 

How wide was Mr. Salisbury's interest in the Orient may 
be seen from his painstaking study on the Chinese origin of 
the compass, read before the Connecticut Society of Arts and 
Sciences in 1840. It is an abstract from Klaproth's letter to 
Humboldt, but it involves a careful investigation of an intri- 
cate subject. Again, in 1848, in a report of the Directors, 
which is virtually a recommendation to the Oriental Society, 
Mr. Salisbury urges the importance of Egyptology and the 
desirability of making excavations at Nineveh ; while in the 
same recommendation occurs the following notable paragraph, 
which I think will be of especial interest to ail classical stu- 
dents : " But as an indispensable condition of this advance of 
knowledge, the writings of the Greeks and the Biblical records 
relating to Assyria and the data of the newly- discovered 
Assyrian monuments, must all be brought together, for mu- 
tual explanation, and to supply each other's deficiencies. . . . 
The concentration of oriental and classical studies has shed 
light upon many obscurities, and is destined to do this still 
more in the future. There is then an evident propriety in 
oriental and classical scholars being associated together, for 
the more successful prosecuting of those investigations in 
which they have a common interest, and accordingly this 
Society embraces classical members, besides such as interest 
themselves in oriental researches, specially considered. 

" But something more seems necessary, in order that these 
two elements united in our association may be brought to a 
reciprocity of action. It has, therefore, been proposed [i. e. 
Mr. Salisbury proposes] to create within this Society, a 
special organization for the promotion of classical learning, in 
its various bearings upon oriental [sc. subjects]. The sim- 
plest method of executing the proposition in question, would 



10 MEMORIAL ADDRESS TN HONOR OF 

seem to be to create by election from among the members of 
the Society a Classical Section, to have in view especiall}^ 
and to have charge over, the classical side of oriental 
subjects." 

I have read this long extract, not only to show you Mr. 
Salisbury's catholicity, but because I think it of peculiar 
interest that he who has done so much for Orientalists should 
also be the one to initiate the founding of the Philological 
Association. For our present Philological Association is but the 
later growth of the Classical Section which Mr. Salisbury here- 
with brought into existence. It is perhaps to be too curious 
to ask whether the Modern Language and Dialect Societies, or 
again the Archaeological Society, all offshoots of the Philolog- 
ical Association, may not be traced to the same source ; and 
it must, of course, be admitted that the creation of a philo- 
logical society, either as a Chapter of the Oriental or as an 
independent body, could not have been long delayed, and 
that such an association as we have now was not dependent 
upon the action of the Oriental Society. All this is true, but 
the fact remains that all these societies, historically consid- 
ered, sprang from the Report to the Directors of the Oriental 
Society, which was accepted at the Quarterly Meeting on 
January 5, 1848, twenty-one years before the Philological 
Association became incorporated ; for till then the latter 
remained, under the name of Classical Section, a minor at 
home with the parent society. 

Although Mr. Salisbury's title was " Professor of Arabic 
and Sanskrit," he included in his studies, with his usual 
breadth of vision, Persian as a close relative of Sanskrit, and 
in the fourth part of the first volume of the Oriental Journal 
he published a remarkably clear and correct essay on the 
Identification of the Signs of the Persian Cuneiform Alpha- 
bet (1849). The writer, to repeat his own words, will only 
" communicate results obtained " by other scholars, and the 
paper is not a contribution of original material ; but it de- 
serves mention particularly because it shows that Mr. Salis- 
bury had already worked his way through Lassen, Burnouf, 



PROFESSOR SALISBURY. 11 

Rawlinson, and the more recent Beitrdge zur ErJdarung der 
Persischen Keilinschriften of Adolph Holtzmann, Die Per- 
siscJien Keilinschriften of Benfey (1847), and to have known 
of Oppert's Lautsystem des Altpersischen (1848), although, 
properly speaking, the whole subject lay apart from his 
official field of research. 

On the Arabic side, Mr. Salisbury was particularly active, 
publishing first a Translation of unpublished Arabic Docu- 
ments, with introduction and notes, first read before the 
Oriental Society in October, 1849, an independent but not 
the most original work presented by him ; since in 1852 he 
read a critique of the genuineness of the so-called Nestorian 
monument of Singanfu. Here he had to give a digest of the 
views of Abel-R^musat, Neumann, Ritter, and Neander, and 
then " exhibit the true state of the evidence," which he does 
clearly and concisely. 

Another paper on the Science of Moslem Tradition (read 
in 1859 and published in 1861) is one of his most scholarly 
efforts, being " gathered from original sources, either only in 
manuscript or so little accessible as to be nearly equivalent 
to unpublished authorities " (referring to Delhi lithographs). 
The first of these documents is a manuscript in the de Sacy 
collection, which was now in Mr. Salisbury's possession. 
This was soon followed by a paper on The Muhammedan 
Doctrines of Predestination and Free Will, from original 
sources. These were, I think, articles especially agreeable 
to him to write, essentially historical, and in that one of his 
two fields in working which he took perhaps the greater 
satisfaction. 

The same year, however, in which was published the former 
of these papers, appeared in the New Englander an article 
apparently written in 1858, printed by especial request of the 
editor and entitled Sketch of the Life and Works of Michael 
Angelo Buonarroti, in which Mr, Salisbury gave a popular 
account of the great artist, quoting at the end with especial 
admiration the words of the sonnet composed by the poet 
in his old age : — 



12 MEMORIAL ADDRESS IN HONOR OF 

"Ne pinger ne scolpir fia piu che queti ; 
L'anima volta a quell' amor divino, 
Ch' aperse a prender noi in croce le braccia." 

Mr. Salisbury, it may be observed, had more than a reading 
knowledge of Italian, and though he never prided himself 
upon possessing linguistic attainments, yet it is worth re- 
cording, especially in view of the fact that such ability was 
very rare in the first half of the last century, that he not only 
read Sanskrit, Persian, Arabic, and Hebrew, besides, of course, 
Greek and Latin, but spoke German, French, and Italian. 
Spanish he knew but slightly, and I am not sure whether 
he could speak it. 

Another historical article was published in the same 
magazine — then one of the leading literary journals of the 
country — in 1876, on some of the Relations between Islam 
and Christianity. But in the meantime Mr. Salisbury had 
published in the Journal, to which he contributed, in all, 
thirty-two papers, his most extensive scientific article, a 
" Notice of the Book of Sulaiman's First Ripe Fruit " (read 
at the Meetings of May and October, 1864), a revelation of 
the mysteries of the Nusairian sect, the article being a 
critical interpretation of the titular work (which had appeared 
that same year in Beirut), according to copies forwarded by 
Dr. Van Dyck, the able local missionary. This very original 
tract was written by Sulaimg,n 'Effendi, who appears in it as 
a zealous convert to the Christian religion. But this was 
by no means the first time that Sulaiman had undergone the 
mental distraction of conversion. Starting out as a Nusairy, 
but soon growing dissatisfied with this religion, he soon 
became a convert to Judaism. This faith, however, also 
failed to content him, and he converted himself again, this 
time becoming a Moslem; after which, for he had not yet 
found peace, he became converted to his fourth religion and 
entered the Greek church. His fifth religion was his last, 
and as a member of the Protestant Christian church he re- 
views the iniquities of his original faith in the diatribe 



PROFESSOR SALISBURY. 13 

translated and published by Mr. Salisbury. Such a work 
would be considered by many a find to exult over, and had it 
been discovered recently we should doubtless have had the 
Sunday papers advertising the odd facts therein chronicled, 
such as the present existence of Syrian moon-worshippers 
and of "trinitarian Muhammedans." But forty years ago 
such methods were unknown, as they were ever incon- 
ceivable in connection with the dignified scholar who quietly 
published his most extraordinary discovery in the current 
number of the Oriental Journal, knowing that, though never 
noticed by others, it would be seen by those whose opinion 
seemed to him of worth. 

This last essay was published after Mr. Salisbury had 
retired from his professorship. It is a tradition that his pre- 
diction of loneliness was in so far fulfilled as to give him but 
two students. You know, however, what the lion said : 
" I have only one child but he is a lion." Mr. Salisbury at 
least reared two lions. In 1851, the elder of his whilom 
students, James Hadley, had already succeeded Mr. Woolsey 
as Professor of Greek, and to the other Mr. Salisbury in 
1854 resigned his Sanskrit work. The teacher's influence is 
clearly perceptible when we read that Mr. Hadley was not 
only versed in the classics, but acquainted with Hebrew, 
Arabic, Armenian, Sanskrit, and Keltic ; and of Mr. Whitney 
it need only be said that when as a youth, after studying 
Sanskrit for some years by himself, he sought in 1849 for one 
to guide him further in his studies, his adviser, who, it is 
pleasant to add, was our own venerable Dr. Day, then 
Whitney's pastor in Northampton, naturally referred him to 
Mr. Salisbury, as the only man in the country who could 
teach him. 

After the publication of the last article to which reference 
has just been made, Mr. Salisbury's mind turned to new 
fields of investigation. To him is due the very complete 
sketch of the Trumbull Gallery in the Yale Book of 1879 ; 
while in 1877 he had read before the Art School a lecture on 
the Principles of Domestic Taste, which was printed the 



14 MEMORIAL ADDRESS IN HONOR OF 

same year in the New Englancler — parerga of a scholar ; but 
Mr. Salisbury, for many years one of the Elective Members 
of the Yale Art School, was always interested in art, nearly 
as much so as in the Orient, and allowed none of his faculties 
to become atrophied, so that when his eyes could no longer 
peruse texts his active mind could still work in other, yet not 
unfamiliar fields. 

The studies of his later years were, however, still of 
historical sort. In 1875 he read before the New Haven 
Colonial Historical Society a paper, full of minute inves- 
tigation, on Mr. William Diodate and his Italian Ancestry 
(printed in 1876). Thereafter genealogical research was 
his chief occupation, especially as fast failing eyesight pre- 
cluded further Oriental study, whereas in genealogical work 
he had the skilful and devoted assistance of his wife. In 
1885, when over seventy years of age, Mr. Salisbury pub- 
lished his (own) Family Memorials ; and in 1892, the Family 
Histories and Genealogies (of his wife), in several large 
volumes, sumptuously prepared, and edited with such atten- 
tion to details that he is said to have ordered a whole 
volume reprinted because of one typographical error. 

Mr. Salisbury says of his own contributions to Orientalia 
that lie published his papers in the Journal of the Oriental 
Society " more as an amateur-student than as a master with 
authority." But, as we have seen, there was real and rigid 
scholarship in all that he presented. Moreover, though not 
perhaps " master with authority," his abilities were fully 
recognized by learned confreres, as bears witness the fact that 
he was elected a member of the Asiatic Society of Paris 
when he was twenty-four years old (1838) ; of the two 
Academies of Art and Sciences of Connecticut and Boston in 
1839 and 1848, respectively; a corresponding member of 
the Imperial Academy of Sciences and Belles Lettres at 
Constantinople in 1855 ; a corresponding member of the 
German Oriental Society in 1859; and of the Antiquarian 
Society in 1861. He was twice given the degree of Doctor 
of Laws, once in 1869 by his Alma Mater, and again in 1886 



PROFESSOR SALISBURY. 15 

by Harvard. It is characteristic of his modest estimate of 
his own ability and of his love of truth that he refused to 
accept the latter degree mitil the terms (employed in be- 
stowing it) in praise of his own services to science were so 
modified as to make it possible for him to admit that they 
might refer to himself. In 1869 Mr. Salisbury was strongly 
urged to accept the chair of Arabic at Harvard, but no 
inducement could tempt him away from New Haven. 

In the sketch I have given of Mr. Salisbury's more impor- 
tant writings you have seen what he was as a scholar. But 
the energies thus early devoted to philology were not allowed 
to remain selfishly employed. The young professor was ap- 
pointed in 1841, and after studying abroad a second time, with 
Lassen in Germany and Burnouf in France, as previously he 
had studied with Bopp in Berlin and Garcin de Tassy and de 
Sacy in Paris, he assumed the duties of his ofiice in 1843. The 
year before this, chiefly in the interest of missionary work, 
had been founded the American Oriental Society (1842, three 
years before the organization of the German Oriental Society). 
Into this opening for new labor Mr. Salisbury, on his return 
from abroad, flung himself with ardor. To him it was to be 
a society which should concentrate activities till then scat- 
tered and unorganized. There are few living who know how 
much Mr. Salisbury has done for this Society. As has been 
said by one of his colleagues in a recent review of his life : 
"No notice of Professor Salisbury would be complete without 
an emphatic recognition of his invaluable services in the 
development of that Society by the unstinted expenditure of 
time, labor, and money." For Mr. Salisbury not only sup- 
ported the Society, but he contributed besides the constant 
spur of his own example in offering memoirs, in suggesting 
improvements, and last but not least in being present as a 
duty at the meetings of the Society. For eleven years he 
was its corresponding secretary (and practically the editor 
of its Journal), filling an arduous and thankless office with 
constant fidelity and self-sacrificing devotion; and for ten 
years he was the Society's honored president. 



16 MEMORIAL ADDRESS IN HONOR OF 

Of his own work in behalf of the Society he himself says 
merely that he " labored to make its Journal the vehicle of 
some valuable contributions ... as well as for the e:eneral 
prosperity of the Society — not wholly without success, due 
in largo measure to the co-operation of learned American mis- 
sionaries '' (^Olass-book of 1832), — a characteristically humble 
appraisement. But let us add this to it, that of his long ser- 
vice in behalf of the Society, an active membership from almost 
its beginning to his death, nearly tlu'ee-score j'ears, is itself 
witness. Nor does that testimony stand alone. Just ten years 
ago Mr. Whitney, who knew well what Mr. Salisbmy had 
done for the Oriental Society, and was the best judge of its 
value, wrote as follows: "Professor Salisbury, by his own 
writings and by the active correspondence which he kept up 
with American missionaries, . . . provided most of the ma- 
terial for publication ; he also himself procured a number of 
fonts of Oriental type — mostly the tirst of this kind in the 
country, and still in part the only ones — for use in printing 
the Journal; and, not less in importance, he met the expenses 
of publication of volume after volume. . . . For some ten 
years. Professor Salisbury was virtually the Society, doing its 
work and paj'ing its bills. He gave it standing and credit in 
the world of scholai-s, as an organization that could originate 
and could make public valuable material" (April, 1891). 

Such also is the testimony of a younger colleague, Mr. 
Lanman, who, six yeai-s ago in liis address in memory of Mr. 
Whitney, alluded to ]Mr. Salisbury as the " life and soul of 
the Society," during the period of its earlier growth. 

Nor has the Oriental Society, either individually or as a 
body, ever forgotten him, and when by good chance its meet- 
ing fell on his birthday, as has happened twice witliin the 
last few years, it has been with a sense of personal gratitica- 
tion, even on the part of members who knew him only by his 
works, that this Society honored itself by sending him a eon- 
gmtnlatory telegram. In reply to one of these despatches, 
sent two years ago, on his eighty-fifth birthday, Mr. Salisbury 
responded by sending his own congi-atulations to the Society 



I 



PROFESSOR SALISBURY. 17 

"on what it has grown to be from its small beginnings of 
more than fifty years ago," — and there was none that heard 
the answer who did not add to these unassuming words, 
" Thanks largely to him that sends the message." 

To appreciate fully what Mr. Salisbury has done for Yale 
University is no easy task. Nearly sixty years ago, in 1842, 
he gave considerable sums for the erection of a library build- 
ing, and subsequently for the erection of East and West 
Divinity Halls, and for the income of the Art School. But 
aid for building, great as was that, was the least of his 
numerous benefactions. For it was through him alone that 
two of Yale's most distinguished professors were permanently 
located where, in the case of one, it was most proper that he 
should be retained, at the seat of the labors that had already 
made him famous ; as in the case of the other it was most 
fortunate that the University could thus secure for itself the 
promise of his future greatness. Gladly would the University 
have been first to induce the one to remain and the other to 
come, but on neither occasion when the need arose were funds 
available for the purpose. In each case the prospect was that 
Yale would fail to gain its end. But Mr. Salisbury was 
here, and quietly, unostentatiously, as he did everything, he 
said, " Let this be my office." And not once but twice, out of 
his own means, he accomplished for the University what the 
University left to itself would have been unable to do. What 
glory remains to Yale in the names of Dana and Whitney, — 
and the measure of a university's renown is not in the num- 
ber of its students, but in the reputation of its teachers, — this 
glory as an abiding possession is due to him whose memory 
we are here assembled to honor. " It is a thought that may 
interest us all," said President Dwight in his Memorial Ad- 
dress on Professors Dana and Whitney (June, 1895), "that 
the two men were alike secured for our University by the 
generous interposition of a friend of the institution, one and 
the same friend, whose liberal gifts made the remaining here 
possible for them. This friend, now in his serene old age, 

2 



18 MEMORIAL ADDRESS IN HONOR OF 

survives them both, having witnessed with deepest satisfac- 
tion the rich fruits of their work. His scholarly life within 
the University for many years, and his benefactions bestowed 
during the long course of half a century, have accomplished 
much for its well-being in many ways. But the student of 
our history will ever recognize with a peculiarly grateful feel- 
ing, as he traces the progress of this institution for the last 
forty years, the service which was rendered by this benefactor 
when he gave these two generous gifts, and the names of 
Professors Dana and Whitney will be closely associated in 
his mind and memory with the name of Professor Salisbury, 
their honored friend and ours." 

There is another factor in the totality of a university's 
completeness. The foundation of its scholarship lies in its 
library. A universit}^ without books, the best and latest, 
is like a factory filled with workmen but without works. 
Against this deficiency Mr. Salisbury supplied the University 
out of his own store, first of books and then of ever-present 
assistance. The treasures of learning accumulated by the 
great Orientalist de Sacy were bought at his death by 
Mr. Salisbury, who thus more than sixty years ago laid 
the foundations of the unrivalled Oriental library of which 
Yale boasts to-day. For he did not wait, as many would 
have done, to leave this collection to the University, but 
robbing himself of his treasure gave it thirty years ago to 
Yale. Nor has there ever been a time since then when in 
furthering the good work thus begun he has failed to respond 
most generously to appeals for aid. Only two years ago a 
collection of Oriental books was offered for sale and there 
was no chance of the University being able to purchase them. 
I went to Mr. Salisbury and laid the case before him. The 
sum demanded was large. "I can scarcely afford it," he 
said, " but," he added, " Yale, must have the books and I 
will pay for them." This was his spirit always, and as long 
as he lived he continued to give annually for the support 
of the library. Without show or exploitation, almost se- 
cretly, he aided continuously for more than half a century, 



PROFESSOR SALISBURY. 19 

by his munificence as well as by his sage suggestions, the 
development of this University. 

Thus as scholar, as member of the Oriental Society, and 
finally as benefactor of Yale and of the Society alike, Mr. 
Salisbury lived his noble life, — a life of fulness to himself 
and of much benefit to others, not only in material things but 
also in the mental stimulus imparted by it until its very close. 
Such is his record as a public character. But to us who knew 
him there was more than this, the charm of his personality. 
For he himself, the aged scholar, was ever crowned with such 
a gentle dignity and antique stately courtliness that even to 
meet him gave great pleasure, as to know him was an intel- 
lectual gain. But of his kindness and of the love felt for him 
I may not speak, lest I come too near the heart of some here 
present; yet even in the case of those not of his family 
the reverence felt for him was indissolubly associated with 
affection. 

In the ancient burial service of the Rig Veda it is described 
how the survivors of a dead man must raise at his grave a 
wall, separating the living from the dead, and sing these 
words : " Now are the living sundered from the dead ; (there 
lies the dead) but we go on " (to life). Fortunate is it that 
the living can thus turn again to the varied interests of life ; 
but fortunate also are they who, in thus turning, feel that not 
all which once was theirs is sundered from them, but that 
through the dividing wall of death there still extends, in 
memories linking together the present and the past, an im- 
pulse that does not die with the dead, but is still a vital force 
among the living. 



INDIA OLD AND NEW. 



INDIA OLD AND NEW. 



THE RIG VEDA. 

MoEE than a generation has now passed since the work 
called Rig Veda, that is, Verse-Wisdom, was first completely 
published in print. The first half appeared just forty years 
ago, and the second half followed two years later. 

But although the Rig Veda has been in the hands of schol- 
ars for so long, there is no unanimity on their part as regards 
either the time and place of origin, or the character of this 
Verse-Wisdom. There are, however, already at hand certain 
data the consideration of which should tend to solidify opinion 
on these points. Some of these can be explained without 
bringing in technical details, and the general problem may 
easily be stated in such a way as to be comprehended by any 
student accustomed to deal with the history of literature. 

In a narrow sense the Rig Veda is one of four Vedas ; yet 
since two of the other three are merely the Rig Veda itself, 
arranged for chaunting, sdman, and for a sacrificial liturgy, 
yajus, while the fourth is also a collection of verses, many 
of which are simply taken from the older Rig Veda, we 
may say that in a wider sense, for historical purposes, 
there is only one Veda, that is, a body of hymns composed 
separately in remote antiquity and afterwards brought to- 
gether and arranged in various groups called " Collections." 
But in this wider sense the Verse-Wisdom of ancient India is 
itself a heterogeneous combination of old hymns, charms, 
philosophical poems, and popular songs, most but not all of 
which are of religious content. 



,/ 



24 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

As the starting-point of our critique we may take the 
admission made in the Vedic literature itself that the va- 
rious Collections known to us are parts of a more primitive 
Veda, Something more than philosophical and religious in- 
terpretation is contained in this statement. It holds a bit 
of literary history, and the view here advanced is supported 
by a careful study of the structure of our extant texts. For 
not only is it true that the three oldest Collections are merely 
various arrangements of Verse-Wisdom, in the main the 
Collection or Rig Veda, but it is also indisputable that this 
Rig Veda Collection itself is a composite consisting largely 
of the same material disposed in various ways. The same 
whole verses and a still larger number of parts of verses are 
found repeated in different hymns, while in almost every 
hymn occur phrases which are used elsewhere in other situa- 
tions. All this points to the fact that the hymns are founded 
on older material, the wreck of which has been utilized in 
constructing new poetic buildings, just as many of the tem- 
ples of India are to a great extent built of the material 
of older demolished temples. The extant Verse- Wisdom 
Collection, then, far from being a group of primitive hymns, 
is probably in part the later remnant of older hymns (which 
in course of time were changed both in substance and in 
form), while in part it is merely more modern imitation of 
these hymns. 

By such re-handling of older material literature has in fact 
always been preserved in India. We need look only at the 
later form of hymns of the Rig Veda Collection as they 
appear in the Atharva Collection to see that in order to be 
intelligible the poetry of the ancients had to be brought 
down to date, so to speak ; or, again, at the verses of the 
Upanishads that still preserve archaic forms, as they in turn 
are passed along through the medium of the epic, with the 
sense kept but with the outer form remodelled to suit a 
later age. 

It is for this reason that attempts to discover dialectic dif- 
ferences in the Rig Veda have as good as failed completely. 



THE RIG VEDA. 25 

Some few traces of a primitive dialectic divergence in the use 
of certain grammatical forms have been thought to be percep- 
tible, but they are mostly imaginary ; that is, the divergence 
in any one case is too small to establish a dialect upon, and all 
the supposed traces taken together fail to show any special 
dialectic difference between the different parts of the Veda. 
This is true both in regard to other dialectic distinctions and 
in regard to a distinction between priestly and popular lan- 
guage. All that has been shown is that some of the hymns 
are nearer than others to the norm of the later language, that 
is, are themselves later. The reason why the Veda Collection 
was made at all was doubtless the very fact that the form of 
antique hymns was continually changing. As the Athenians 
wished to preserve the tragedians, so the priests of India 
made at last an authorized edition of their hereditary material, 
as it had been handed down in their different families by that 
much belauded Hindu memory which has foolishly been 
supposed to be always infallible, whereas, in point of fact, 
wonderful as it was when so trained as to absorb all other 
intellectual powers, by nature it was untrustworthy ; for in 
citing older material by memory the Hindus, as I have just 
shown, are constantly unreliable as far as regards the exact 
reproduction in stereotyped form of the verses they repeat. 
And this must have been the case always till the Vedic ma- 
terial began to be felt as something ancient enough to be 
divine. Previously there is no reason at all to suppose that 
the repeaters of old songs were themselves very nice in 
this regard, or that they were estopped from making indi- 
vidual alterations in the text. On the contrary, we must 
believe that the hymns with other poetic tradition of older 
Verse-Wisdom were at first handed down in just the way 
in which the later hymns and other poetic literature were 
handed down in the Upanishads and epic, — that is, modified, 
transformed, freely altered. On this point, as on many oth- 
ers, a study of what has actually happened is far more likely 
than a priori argument to direct historical research rightly. 
In regard to the Vedic verses, the very case taken to preserve 



26 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

them exactly as they were, the extraordinary machinery in- 
vented solely to this end, such as dislocating the complete 
words and repeating the parts separately, saying them again 
by an overlapping process, and finally repeating them forwards 
and backwards — all this anxious solicitude shows not only, 
what has often been commented upon, that the priests held 
the text in veneration, but also, what is more important and 
is not sufficiently recognized, that they were sure the text 
would continue to be corrupted, modified, modernized, as 
without such precaution it had been changed in the past. 

From what I have already said it follows that hymns of 
very different periods originally, but reduced pretty much to 
one linguistic level, will be found in the Verse-Wisdom, 
which, at some time in its natural development, was thus 
arrested. For the older hymns, as they passed through 
generations of reciters, would have been steadily modified, 
not indeed to the very level of the reciters, but, so to speak, 
to within easy reaching distance. We see the same thing 
exactly in our successive editions of hymn-books. The quaint 
old hymn loses its oldest, perhaps incomprehensible or re- 
pugnant features, but it is not reduced quite to the same form 
as those written in this generation. Sufficient antique flavor 
is preserved to conserve its sanctity, as it were, but at the same 
time sufficient change is introduced to make it appeal to the 
intelligence and sympathy of the modern worshipper. How 
far this has gone in the actual Veda Collections has been 
shown by Professor Aufrecht. The evidence is valuable; 
but before there was any such Collection the same process 
must have resulted in the linguistic and syntactical modifica- 
tion of the older hymns of the Verse-Collection. 

The present Rig Veda Collection consists of ten groups, 
which may be roughly divided into three main divisions, in- 
dicating two earlier groups and a later (completed) Collec- 
tion; the first comprising the second to the seventh book 
inclusively, the second containing additions set round the older 
group, and consisting of the first to the eighth books (inclu- 
sive), and the third, or final redaction, consisting of the former 



THE RIG VEDA. 27 

groups witli thie addition of the ninth and tenth books. These 
two last added books differ more in character than in age 
from the preceding, though generally speaking the latest 
hymns (linguistically judged) are found in these two books. 
But as the books differ in character they contain also a great 
deal of old material, which had not previously been incor- 
porated because it did not correspond to the character of the 
earlier books. While, therefore, the books ii-vii are the oldest 
group and books ix-x the latest books, i and viii being inter- 
mediate, some parts of the latest group are nevertheless proba- 
bly earlier than the earlier groups as such ; and likewise the 
eighth book does not quite suit the character of the first group, 
and may for this reason have been preserved apart before it 
was finally tagged on to it. But since its vocabulary is dis- 
tinctly later than that of books ii-vii, as its rhythmic arrange- 
ment is more refined, it is most likely that it really is a later 
product ; nor is there anything in its content similar to the 
antique content of certain of the hymns of the tenth book to 
counterbalance the lateness of vocabulary, style, and arrange- 
ments. The most important book chronologically is the ninth, 
which has a character all its own in that it comprises nearly 
all the Vedic hymns to Soma ; that is, it is exclusively oc- 
cupied with a cult that is pre- Vedic, and yet as a part of the 
Collection it is clearly a late addition to the first two groups ; 
and the individual hymns, some of which must in their orig- 
inal form have been among the oldest hymns of the whole 
Veda, are in their group-form all reduced to the same lin- 
guistic level, which in general is that of the end rather than 
the beginning of the Collection. 

The time when the Verse-Wisdom Collection was made 
cannot be much earlier than the sixth century b. c, and may be 
considerably later. That the individual hymns of which the 
Collection consists are in their original form older than this 
is unquestionable, and scholars have referred the date of the 
hymns, in distinction from the date of the making of the Col- 
lection, to the tenth, twelfth, fifteenth, and even thirty-fifth 
century before our era. The last date is the result of certain 



28 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

astronomical factors supposed to be valid as determinants and 
applied with mucli ingenuity to the solution of the problem. 
But the premises on which rests this theory of the date are 
scarcely admissible and the theory neither has had nor is 
likely to have the support of other critics, though the in- 
ventor of the theory is himself an extremely able and sober- 
minded critic. But it is a well-known fact that when one 
makes what appears to be an important discovery one's critical 
faculty is almost sure to be unduly influenced by one's en- 
thusiasm for the idea, — very fortunately, for otherwise there 
would be no advance in science, since caution would so check 
as to palsy invention. 

As to the other dates proposed, they have no other basis, 
as may be seen by their fluctuating nature, than the vague 
belief that a certain, or uncertain, number of centuries must 
elapse before a thousand hymns of varying chronological value 
can be written and explained ; for other data of change re- 
quire no very long period. But the chronological values are 
based not so much on the number of hymns and elucidations 
(for no one knows how many authors were concerned in the 
making of the Veda, and the number of elucidations, Brah- 
manas, does not represent time so much as schools) as on 
sundry allusions of the poets themselves to older poets and 
hymns, and on an assumed difference in age between some of 
the hymns, which have a more antique vocabulary and gram- 
mar, and those that come nearer to the later standard. 

It is obvious, then, that the first factor may be admitted and 
yet largely discounted by the admission of only a few genera- 
tions of poets, not more than two centuries. Nor are the 
linguistic differences so great as to make it necessary to as- 
sume anything like half a dozen centuries for their formation. 
Again, the chief reason for believing that circa 600 b, c. is the 
date of the Collection as such, is that the older explanatory 
Brahmanas do not show any acquaintance with such a Collec- 
tion, whereas the later do, as do the early philosophical Upani- 
shads. Now the linguistic changes arising between the time 
of the Brahmanas in their oldest form and the Upanishads 



THE RIG VEDA. 29 

which belong to them are not much less than those between 
the Brahmanas and the hymns, and there is no reason what- 
ever for supposing that all the changes between the oldest 
hymns and the Upanishads of the first and second period (the 
old prose and verse Upanishads) could not have been effected 
in the course of two centuries. Two hundred years are a long 
time in the course of a language unrestricted by written litera- 
ture, and even when handicapped by the drag of writing, 
which naturally impedes change, it needs but this to turn the 
language of Cato into that of Quintilian ; nor does the lan- 
guage of the Upanishads compared with that of the Rig Veda 
show greater changes than those that mark the language of 
Milton when compared with that of Chaucer, two centuries 
earlier. Further, as I have said, the development of the 
literature is not so great as to oppose this narrower limit, nor 
are the ethical, philosophical, religious, and sociological factors 
of the sixth century b. c. such as to preclude the prob- 
ability that they represent the evolution of six generations, 
without revolution of religion or state, after the earliest 
hymns were written. 

On the other hand, there is a very important factor which 
tends to restrain the assumption that many preliminary cen- 
turies are essential in this reckoning. As long as Zoroaster 
was indefinitely remote all similarities between Veda and 
Avesta could be explained on the basis of an indefinitely 
remote relationship. But now that Zoroaster's date is fairly 
well determined, we must face anew the fact, which has never 
been denied, that the language of the Avesta and that of the 
Rig Veda are too closely related to admit of the possibility 
of any great chasm in time between the two works. But the 
Avesta, as Professor Jackson has shown, cannot be referred 
to a period much earlier than 600 B. c, and as we are prob- 
ably safe in saying that in part of the seventh century even 
the Gathas of Iran were still unsung, so we may well believe 
that the earliest hymns of the Rig Veda were not much earlier. 
A couple of centuries would meet all Indie requirements and 
be as much as can be granted in view of the religious and 



30 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

linguistic ajfifinity with Iran, One thousand B. c. is, then, not 
the lowest, but the highest limit that we can reasonably set to 
the Rig Veda, and 800 b. c. is probably nearer the mark, as 
far as the bulk of the Rig Veda is concerned. 

The home of the Rig Veda has been located in almost as 
many places as Paradise. Now it is by the Caspian Sea, now it 
is in Kandahar, but the Punjab is the favorite place, and quite 
naturally ; for the poets are familiar with the Punjab, sing of 
it, talk of crossing its rivers, and in many ways show that 
they occupied, in part at least, the country stretching from 
Peshawar to Delhi. 

Only, in this ready solution there is one fact which arrests 
the attention of those who know India from seeing it, as well 
as from its ancient literature. When one traverses the 
district just mentioned, one crosses in going from east to 
west, from Delhi to Peshawar, from the extreme limit of the 
monsoon's influence, over a bare sandy plain, remote alike 
from the effect of seasonal rains and from the view of any 
mountains. And then one remembers, at first with wonder, 
that the climatic conditions of the Rig Veda are quite differ- 
ent from those of the Punjab ; that the poets are continually 
extolling the furious battles of the storm-gods and live ever 
in sight of the great mountains. As I have written on this 
subject elsewhere,^ I will here merely sum up what I have 
said previously. Apart from a few hymns where the Indus 
and streams west of the Indus are mentioned, the life of the 
Vedic Aryan, as depicted in his earliest literature, reflects not 
so much a wandering life in a desert as a life stable and 
fixed, above all, a life in sight of mountains and within the 
influence of the monsoon storms. Further, the poets sing 
of having crossed the very last river of the Punjab, and 
between this and any possible abiding-place there is only a 
plain that is practically a desert. But when one retraces his 
steps and, turning east to the old " limit of India," Sirhind, 
passes still east of this, one arrives for the first time at a 

1 Journal of the American Oriental Society, vol. xix, p. 21 ff. 



THE RIG VEDA. 31 

district where monsoon storms and mountain scenery are 
found, that district, namely, which lies about Umballa or 
Ambala, south toward Thanesar, Kurukshetra, between the 
Sarasouti and Ghuggar rivers. In this district noble moun- 
tains are visible, which recede from sight as one approaches 
Thanesar. Here the monsoon still breaks in violence, while 
the Punjab has only showers and dust-storms. Here are 
softly sloping hills and verdant pasturage, such as the Vedic 
poets besing. It is here that, in accordance with these facts, 
the Rig Veda as a whole, as I think, was composed. In 
every particular this locality fulfils the physical conditions 
under which the composition of the hymns was possible, 
while it explains the lyrics of the priests in regard to the 
crossing of the Punjab as having been composed after the 
event; whereas any other assumption carries us west of 
the Punjab, for only here do we come again upon a mountain- 
ous and storm-beaten country. 

One point more. In the usual sunset in India there is a 
sudden red glow followed by a dull copper-yellow, which 
soon fades. At sunrise there is the same quick succession of 
colors reversed. Only in the Punjab can one see a really 
beautiful sunset, or a sunrise such as is marked by bright 
yellow, gradually deepening into rose, and this continuing 
with a long, slow flush of crimson. 

Now why is it that among the oldest hymns of the Rig 
Veda we find such beautiful Hymns to Dawn, and why is it 
that this erst so well-beloved Damosel of Heaven, who is 
especially invoked to give " good paths to the sojourner," is 
entirely neglected in the later Vedic and liturgical literature ? 
First, because Dawn was dawn indeed only in the watery 
northwest, with its cloud-making atmosphere. When the 
sun leaps at a bound out of cloudless night and makes daz- 
zling day, as it does generally in India, there is no dawn to 
speak of, much less to sing of. And second, because she 
who is especially invoked to give good paths is the right 
leader of those whose journey begins with the first light in 
the east. Then Dawn is invoked by those who still live to 



82 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

the west of the great rivers, otherwise she would not be 
addressed as one who " in shining light before the wind arises 
comes gleaming o'er the waters, making good paths." 
Again, those that tend their flocks upon the great plains are 
they who are most apt to keep in religious reverence the 
God of the Sky. He too, Varuna, was a great god to the 
early poets, but the bulk of the Vedic Hymns pass him over 
in favour of the Rain-and-Storm-god, Indra, a new creation, 
for the Punjab has no place for him. Varuna and Dawn 
belong to the Punjab ; Indra to the East. Varuna and Dawn 
are more antique than Indra, as the Punjab is the older 
habitat of the Aryans. But the bulk of the Rig Veda belongs 
to Indra and his cult. 

The Vedic poets always represent the rivers as rising sud- 
denly in consequence of Indra's slaying the demon of drought. 
This applies to the rivers above Umballa, but not to the 
Indus nor to the Punjab rivers, which rise long before the 
monsoon breaks (in June), in consequence of the melting of 
Himalayan snow. Consequently, when in one of the Vedic 
lyrics we find Indra addressed as the god that makes the 
Sutlej rise, we must remember that this lyric was composed 
to the east of the Punjab and long after the event. The poet 
credits Indra with having the same power over the Sutlej as 
over the rivers he himself knows. 

The implication made in the distinction here suggested 
between the mass of Vedic hymns and the few that belonged 
to an older age and more western habitat will not be 
acceptable to those who hold that all the Vedic hymns were 
composed in the same ritualistic environment. But such a 
view is as yet merely a theory, and though it is a popular 
fad of modern criticism, — for criticism has its passing fashions, 
— it should not be accepted on that ground, but be held sub- 
ject to the facts we can control. But it fails to conform to 
the data. For not only does it take no note of a difference 
in the religious attitude of the various poets, — evidence of 
any such difference is with magnificent scorn said to be due 
to " merely subjective " criticism, — but it assumes, what is 



THE RIG VEDA. 33 

not true, that all the hymns show traces of having been " made 
for baksheesh " and mechanically ground out to subserve the 
purpose of a ritual essentially the same as that of the later 
Brahmanas. Historically this claim is about on a par with a 
theory which should start with the assumption that because 
the Psalms are rubricated they were all written for the use 
of the Church. It is even more daring, for all the Psalms 
are rubricated, but not all the hymns find a place in the 
later ritual. The absurdity is increased when it is neces- 
sary to dispose of hymns that were clearly never meant for 
any service at all, or such as have been violently twisted out 
of their original meaning to subserve the purpose of the very 
ritual which this facile theory declares was in existence when 
the hymns were composed, as when the later ritual distorts 
a burial hymn into a service for a burning-ghat. If the 
theory means only that when the Vedic hymns were com- 
posed there was a Soma-sacrifice, sacrificial grass, and Kavis, 
or seers, all this is not a new idea but a platitude, for we 
know that such was the case when the Indo-Iranians were 
one people, before the Iranians drew back from the Punjab 
(into which as far as the Beas they probably at one time had 
penetrated). But if it claims, as it appears to do, that the 
service of the later Brahmanas was identical with that of the 
earliest hymns, and that all these hymns were composed 
simply for that service, then in view of the facts just men- 
tioned it may be dismissed as sufficiently unhistorical to 
break with its own weight. No theory which holds that 
every one of the thousand disconnected hymns of the Rig 
Veda is as late or as ritualistic as every other deserves 
serious consideration. Such a view represents merely an 
extreme, and therefore incorrect, reaction against the pre- 
vious exaggerated notion of antiquity and simplicity, traits 
ascribed to the Rig Veda as a whole by earlier scholars. 
But the Rig Veda is neither very naif and primitive nor 
wholly late and ritualistic. Differences of time may be 
almost obliterated linguistically, for the reasons which I 
have already given. But differences in thought and be- 



84 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

lief are still so marked as to demand an explanation; nor 
does the only other solution suggested, that a monotheistic 
trait in Varuna was a loan from Semitic sources, seem so 
probable as that the Rig Veda itself contains different 
strata. The chief reason given for believing that the later 
ritual underlies all the Vedic hymns is that the ritual fre- 
quently explains the hymns. But it is an unwarranted induc- 
tion that therefore all the hymns, whether reflecting the later 
ritual or not, and even those which stand opposed to that 
ritual, must have arisen in the same ritualistic environment. 
If in separating the strata and differentiating the elements it 
is impossible to be sure of judgment in detail, it is better to 
make mistakes in detail than to err in one's general estimate. 

An objection that might be urged against what I have said 
about the Punjab is that, whatever the Punjab is now, it may 
have been quite different in ancient times. Its rivers may 
perhaps have run in different courses and there may have 
been more of them, for it is difficult to-day to see why Seven 
Kivers was the original name of the Punjab (that is. Five 
Rivers). But this name. Seven Rivers, may have been, as it 
was an older name, the designation of an older group of 
rivers ; while the Vedic poets often allude to the " desert," 
so that the country was probably much as it is now, especially 
as it is improbable that the monsoon has backed away from 
its former scene of operations. 

In short, as far as we can judge on the evidence, there 
seems no reason to doubt that the Verse-Wisdom of the 
Hindus dates in general from about the eighth or ninth cen- 
tury, and, while a few hymns come from further west, was 
composed near Umballa, where finally, about 600 B. c, the 
different hymns were made into what is now known as the 
Verse- Wisdom Collection, in which, however, we may detect 
three redactions, made at different times. This Collection as 
a whole contains some old and some more recent material, 
the former more or less levelled to the style and language of 
the latter, as it floated down to the later period, much tampered 
with before being caught up in a collection, and still tarn- 



THE RIG VEDA. 35 

pered with till after tlie final redaction, when greater care 
began to be exercised in regard to preserving all the hymns ; 
for there is no reason to suppose that the first collection was 
due to a desire to preserve the form, but only the matter. 
The idea of a sacrosanct form is much later. The title 
" Hymns " may serve, as it has served in the past, to designate 
the Collection of the Eig Veda ; but that work contains not 
only the mechanical hymns of a later day, but the spontaneous 
songs of an earlier period, as it contains worldly poetry, heroic 
lyrics, epic beginnings, and philosophical studies. 



THE EARLY LYRIC POETRY OF INDIA. 

Foe some mysterious reason our handbooks of Sanskrit Liter- 
ature, after describing the Vedic and epic periods, come at 
last to a separate division called Lyric Poetry, to which is 
given as an initial date circa 500 A. d. This date is wrong by 
more than a thousand years. It ignores all the background 
of the classical lyric. Of this background or foundation or 
forerunner, as you will, I purpose now to speak. 

The lyric poetry of India is of four kinds and belongs in 
general to four epochs, although with one exception each 
precedent variety glides into the next following without 
sharp interval. To follow the onward course, the slow devel- 
opment, the persistent reversions, to note the final loss of the 
early strain and the inception and growth of a new sort of 
lyric, unknown to the earliest period, is a fascinating employ- 
ment, though in some regards a sad one. For as nothing 
reflects the singer's heart like lyric song, it is melancholy to 
discover that the good growth which died is the heroic, while 
the self-ingrafted weed that finally choked out the heroic 
strain is the sentimental, erotic, neurotic, religious-erotic 
lyric, poisonous as it is fair. But before we examine particu- 
larly the earlier forms, let me sketch briefly the course thus 
indicated that you may have at hand an outline of the whole. 

There is first to be noticed the lyric of circa 800 b, c, partly 
altogether religious, partly altogether worldly, while heroic 
themes in some examples are united with a religious element. 
This may be called for convenience the inspired Ijo'ic, to 
distinguish it from the religious lyric of a later day, for only 
the earliest poetry is regarded as divinely inspired. After 
this there is an intervening strain of devotional lyric, which 
appears here and there in the early philosophical essays of 



THE EARLY LYRIC POETRY OF INDIA. 37 

circa 400 b. c, but it is so sporadic in its outgrowth and so 
scrappy in its nature that it may be grouped with the same 
sort of poetry found a little later in the epic, only that here 
there is added the new strain, the sentimental element, but 
the two together may be called the devotional and sentimen- 
tal or epic lyric. Third in time and kind is the simple love- 
lyric, which begins in the drama and appears as an independent 
genre in the later classical lyric. There is also, besides the 
descriptive lyric which runs through the inspired and epic 
periods, some descriptive lyric of fragmentary inscriptional 
character ; but this last may be passed over as a prelude to 
the higher artistic perfection of the poets of 400-800 A. D. 
Last of all there is the complex love lyric of the later poets. 
This is a fusion of erotic and religious elements, and in dis- 
tinction from the simple love lyric may be called the mystic 
lyric. In this last form it is sometimes difficult to say whether 
the poet is more influenced by amorous passion or devout 
piety, or whether both are as strangely blended in his spirit 
as they are in his words. 

The earliest form of lyrical expression is in the main re- 
ligious, and of this religious mass, — that is, the Vedic Hymns, 
— the general content may be described as joyful laudation 
mingled with a canny sense of the usefulness of gods when 
properly praised, as in these verses, which I cite from a previ- 
ous translation : ^ 

'T is India all our songs extol, 

Him huge as ocean in extent ; 
Of "warriors chiefest warrior he, 

Lord, truest lord for booty's gain. 
In friendship, Indra, firm as thine 

We nothing fear, lord of strength ; 
To thee we our laudations sing, 

The conqueror unconquered. 

And so on, in laud of " Indra, the doer of every deed, the 
lightning-holder, far renowned," whose gracious acts are men- 

1 The Eeligions of India, p. 20. 



38 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

tioned as being without number, though, the poet alludes 
especially to his greatest deed, slaying the demon of drought 
and helping his own worshippers in their raids for cattle; 
until the song, which in no wise reflects the sacerdotalism 
that pervades so many of the Vedic hymns, concludes with 
the stanza : 

Indra, who lords it by his strength, 
Our praises now have loud proclaimed ; 

His generous gifts a thousand are, 
Aye, even more than this are they. 

Indra is the war-god, and most of the hymns addressed to 
him portray him as leader in battle as well as slayer of the 
demon-dragon, who holds pent the longed-for rain. The 
spirit of these hymns is exultant, often jovial, and not seldom 
almost brutal ; while, on the other hand, grace and dignity 
are respectively the characteristics of the religious lyrics ad- 
dressed to Dawn and Heaven. Dawn, the path-finder, the 
gentle maiden-goddess of the early Veda, has but few hymns, 
but these are such as to make one wish for more : 

As comes a bride, hath Dawn approached us, gleaming; 

All things that live she rouses now to action. 
A fire is born that shines for human beings ; 

Light hath she made and driven away the darkness. 

near and dear, keep them afar who hate us, 
And make secure our cows' wide pasture-places. 

Keep harm away, but what is good, that bring us, 
And send the singer wealth, O generous maiden. 

Varuna, the Heaven, whose spying eyes are the orbs above, 
who sits upon his golden throne and sees even the thoughts 
of men, is the most majestic and loftiest conception of the 
Vedic poets : 

Bearing a garment all of gold. 
In jewels clothed, is Varuna, 
And round about him sit his spies ; 



THE EARLY LYRIC POETRY OF INDIA. 39 

Him whom th' injurious injure not, 
Nor they who men deceive, deceive, , 
Nor foes attack, a real god. 

Tar go my thoughts to him, as go 
The roaming cows that meadows seek ; 
I search for him, the wide-eyed god, 
To whom, beloved by him of old, 
I bear this honey-sacrifice. 
Then let us talk again, we two ! 

/ would that I might see my god. 
See his great chariot sweep the earth, 
And know that he accepts my song ! 
Hear thou my cry, Varuna, 
Be merciful to me to-day ; 
I need thy help. I turn to thee. 
For if thou art both wise and king 
Of everything in earth and heaven. 
Then must thou hear, and grant, my prayer. 

These verses are arranged in stanzas of three verses each. 
Their metre is but roughly approximated by the iambic Eng- 
lish version, which is true to the original only in the number 
of syllables given to each verse, though the general cadence 
of the model also is iambic. But the latter has the pyrrhic 
and trochee as well as the spondee and iambus, so that the 

combination may be a choriambus, — ^ v>'_w_, 

w — — \j Kj — \j —, — _ — \j \j — \j — , to give the 
cadence of one stanza of the above as an illustration : Come 
an' united once again | To thee bringing a honey-feast | Let 
us talk as of old, the two. 

In the same metre, and also arranged in groups of three 
verses each, a combination which by the way afterwards fell 
into desuetude, another poet sings to Pushan, a divinity who 
also fell into desuetude as time went on. Like Dawn, Pushan 
is the path-finder, who is invoked to conduct the Aryans as 
they push on in their journeys ; a function that was not so 
useful after they became settled along the Jumna and Ganges, 



40 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

but was indispensable while they wandered through the 
desert : ^ 

/Go, Pushanj on the road with us, 

Take every danger from the way, 

And lead us forward, shining god. 

And, Pushan, if a wicked wolf 

Or evil doer threatens us, 

Him truly smite from out our path. 

Whoever lurks upon our path. 
The robber, or the doer of ill, 
Drive him afar from out our way. 

Past all pursuers lead us well. 
Make easy all our pathways thou, 
Pushan, give us wisdom's strength. 

Such poems as these, set in verses the articulation of which, 
it must be confessed, bears in many cases a painful resem- 
blance to that of Midas' epitaph, though for the more part 
they are merely lauds of gods, play between the objective and 
subjective. Thus they often reflect the singer's animosities, 
his hate not only of wrong, but of special wrong-doers ; his 
desire for converse with the gods, his sorrow for sins com- 
mitted by himself. Other Vedic poems have a lyric-dramatic 
setting and give lamentations, or again, they portray erotic 
feeling in situations more or less alien to modern taste. One 
unique hymn addressed to Soma is lyrical in so far as it ex- 
presses the singer's longing for a happy life hereafter : 
/"'^ 
,, Where light that never fades is seen, 

' To the world, where heavenly radiance shines, 
Thither, Soma, bear me hence. 
Th' immortal world, that never ends, 
Where Yama is the king, within 
The innermost part of yonder sky, 
Where everlasting waters flow. 
Make me to be immortal there. 
Where as one wishes one may go, 



THE EARLY LYRIC POETRY OF INDIA. 41 

In the third vault of the threefold sky, 
Amid the luminous worlds of light, 
Make me to be immortal there. 
Where every wish is gratified, 
The highest place the sun attains, 
Where longings all are satisfied, 
Make me to be immortal there. 
The place of joy and mad delight, 
And all intoxicating bliss, 
Where all desire's desires are stilled. 
Make me to be immortal there. 

Of quite worldly content, on the other hand, is the follow- 
ing poem, which may be reckoned as a personal lyric, since 
the poet, in uncovering the source of all human activity and 
finding it in greed alone, exhibits, or pretends to, his own 
inner feelings, as well as those of other men, even of the 
priest, who, he implies, performs his sacrifices merely to get 
the drink of liquor which goes with them ; just as the car- 
penter or wagon-maker seeks a smashed vehicle to mend, 
and the smith prepares to work, not for love of it, but for 
the money he will earn. All work, even that of the poet, is 
done for pay, and " we are all, as it were, pecuniarily in- 
clined," anu ga iva tasthima. It is a late production, belong- 
ing, like the last, to the close of the Vedic collection, but the 
bard must have had a powerful mind, for his explanation of 
the reason why the Vedic poets composed songs at all is 
precisely that of a certain school of Vedic criticism of our 
day. Perhaps, however, this late mocker, who represents 
the end of Vedic poetry, was incapable of understanding 
the spirit of the older poets. But at any rate his criticism, 
if not very deep, makes an interesting bit of satire: 

/Aye, various plans (of work) are ours. 
And different are the ways of men ; 

The carpenter desires a smash ; 

The doctor, wounds ; the priest, a drink. 

With brush-wood dry (to build a fire), 
And feather-fan (to make it hot), 



42 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

And glowing stones (as anvil used), 
The smith a man with money wants. 

I poet am, my dad 's a quack, 

The mater grinds the flour — and yet, 

Whate'er our work,^ we all seek wealth j 
For after money run we all. 

In any lyrical production, the rhythm is so essential an 
element that I will not apologize for pausing here again to 
explain the structure of the Indo-Iranian eight-syllable verse 
as it is found in this so-called anushtubh stanza, which at a 
later date became stereotyped as the §loka verse. The 
pankti form just employed has an additional verse, but 
otherwise it does not differ from the anushtubh, which is the 
prevailing stanza of the octosyllabic verse. Like the gaya- 
tri, or three-verse stanza, it admits light or heavy syllables in 
almost any part of the verse, and though there is a slight 
difference in the frequency of iambic cadence the two forms 
are not essentially different. I have spoken above of pyrrhic 
and trochee, but in fact the verse is not divided into feet 
of this sort, and the classical nomenclature is merely con- 
venient in describing it mechanically, syllable by syllable, 
whereas for the equivalent of our notion of " foot " the verse 
of eight syllables must be taken as a whole. This frame is 
very difficult to render into English, but I shall try to give 
one exact equivalent of the anushtubh, reproducing for that 
purpose without regard to anything else the precise quanti- 
ties found in this Vedic measure, which it is evident no one 
name will describe and no one English rhythm can do more 
than caricature. The vowels in this English version, as I 
have here ignored the stress, are to be measured by classical 
rules (except that y is i). The specimen will at least show 
how varied is the cadence of the different verses in a single 
stanza : 

1 Literally, plans or thoughts. No matter how we plan to attain it, we all 
have the same objective, is the sense. Dad and mater imitate the poet's 
jocose use of tatd and nana (papa and mama) for the more dignified words for 
father and mother. 



THE EARLY LYRIC POETRY OF INDIA. 43 

Praise his great might, Indra the king 

Of earthly kings, the fear of all, 
Bright Indra ruleth e'en the gods 

In glory, ever, as of old.^ 

Indra our army always leads, 

Lofty his home above the earth ; 
Great is Indra, the lord of wealth, 

In worlds on high, the mighty one. 
Extraordinary ruler, he ! 

Indra wisely, the chief of heaven, 
Keigns o'er all worlds, the lordly king, 

Whose priest gains wealth on earth, in heaven. 
It is Indra rules above there,^ 

Yon proud Indra, adored of all ; 
Eaise up a chorus all to him 

In a band joined to worship well. 

As indicated here, the iambic cadence is not always that of 
the end of the verse, and sometimes we find trochee and 
spondee fairly ousting the iambi from this their strongest 
position. The chief difference between this and the subse- 
quent gloka style is in the later adjustment of the half -stanza 
to make one period, in which the first part (or quarter of the 
whole stanza) shall end in an iambus and spondee (trochee), 

the second in iambics only or iambic-pyrrhic (<^ ^ versus 

w_w^). This arrangement was already growing popular in 
the Vedic age, and subsequently it became the rule. 

But this metre, perhaps on account of its confined form 
and rather choppy rhythm, was not that chosen to give full 
play to intense feeling. Hence we find that the most spir- 
ited effusions of the first lyric poets are couched in more 
dithyrambic verse. This verse was one of the two oldest 
forms which the Vedic poets shared with the Iranians ; for at 
the beginning of the first millennium B. c. the Indo-Iranians 
were probably living together near the Indus. But the former 

1 Compare the verse dasmdsya vdsu rdtha a, not so common a combination 
as some of the others. 

2 Compare a verse of this sort in the poem above, jdratibhir daadhtbhih 



44 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

had already modified the metre from the inchoate form it had 
at first, a mere counted string of eleven syllables, short or long. 
On the other hand, as compared with what this metre became 
afterwards, the Vedic trishtubh (as it was called) was still very 
free ; for later the length of every syllable became nearly ster- 
eotyped, and the caesura too tended to be cut after the fourth, 
so that there was little variety in the verse, and the regularity 
with which a choriambus occurred in its middle gave it the 
appearance of two or three similar groups, w _ w _, _ w w _, 
\j — \j {_). In this, the classical form, the middle dactyl has 
quite altered the old Vedic trishtubh, which admits a dactyl 
only as one of many variations, so that in the latter there is 
no constant choriambic effect, and consequently the equi- 
poised middle group disappears altogether. Therewith we 
get to the one characteristic Vedic feature, not a choriambic 
middle, but a ditrochee close, which is in fact about the only 
limitation upon the form, except that the poets do not, of 
course, use a whole group of precedent long or short syllables. 
So this lyric measure in the Vedic age, as opposed to the 
classical form, may be expressed by almost any combination 
of seven syllables followed by — w _ w. All sorts of varia- 
tions are admitted, not only in the middle, but at the begin- 
ning; while instead of eleven or twelve syllables (the 
classical form also admitted the latter) ten may stand for a 
verse, giving a double pentad. 

Nevertheless, despite the occasional exercise of great free- 
dom, which, especially at the beginning, makes the sharpest 
contrast with the diiambic opening of the classical poets 
and shows verses beginning with a trochee or even a chori- 
ambus, the Vedic poets were already tending toward the 
classical norm, and on the whole the measure they employ is 
iambic and anapaestic in movement. Very often we get a de- 
cidedly anapaestic form, \j -Lkj\j ^^ \jkj l.\^±.\j. The swing 
of the verse, as compared with the trot and amble of the 
classical poets, is that of a gallop, often falling into a sharp 
canter, so suddenly changing that it is impossible to suppose 
that the poets had in mind any " regular " form, according to 



THE EARLY LYRIC POETRY OF INDIA. 45 

which they composed. The general run of the verses, ignor- 
ing these frequent breaks, is, indeed, not without a common 
ground-plan, which may be given by the two schemes, — 






J_ 



He went to war, as a man goes to marriage, 
He went to battle, as a man to marriage. 

The occasional lengthening of the ninth syllable, and the 
frequent shortening of the eighth, when it makes part of a 
word and implies a light caesura, deserve special remark, as 
shown by the variation, — 

He went to battle, as ever, a hero. 

A second caesura sometimes gives to the last part of the verse 
the forms w^o'_L, _Lw_Lv^; wv^J — , w_Lw; kjk^^ _Lv^_Lw; 
w w ± , \jJ-w. But these are all very general norms, as may 
be seen by comparing with them many other varieties of 
the verse, alternating in the same stanza, some of which, as 
shown in the list below, would correspond to the English, 
" Hail to the chief, who in triumph advances," if only we 
accented the second syllable of triumph, for example, if it 
were Hail to the chief who is ours, proudly going; while 
others would reflect the form. Hail to the chieftain, proudly 
goes the chieftain ; and still others, At last he comes, whom 
in old state advancing, or, O behold him, as upon earth a 
god he, or, He came as a chief, as a lord to rule us, and so 
on. For example, in the first heroic lyric, that of Vigvamitra, 
translated below, though it has only twelve stanzas, of four 
verses each, there are twenty- two different arrangements, those 
that occur most frequently being \j J-^ J. — , vyw_Lw_Lw, 
and vy_LwJL, \j \j JL J- \j J- \j . Some idea of the variety of 
forms, used side by side in the same stanza, may be got by 
comparing the following varieties, not half of those actually 

employed in this one short lyric : \^ kj ^ \j, \^ \j w — v^; 

\j Kj . \j \j \j \j 1 — \j , \j \j \j \j : \j — \j — , 



46 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

\y \J \J \J • X-/ — . KJ ^^ W \J yj — \J I \J ^. \J^ 

\j \J yj — w — \J i w , — \j \^ — \J I — www, 

w \j w; \j w J — \j — w — w. 

This varied metre is employed, however, not only in the 
heroic lyric, but also in the usual laudatory or descriptive 
verses, the primary object of which is to ascribe general praise 
to the gods. 

The pentad form, as shown in a complete poem, may be 
illustrated by this extract from a little lyric addressed to the 
storm-gods, who follow the lightning-god, Rudra. In general 
plan the cadence is here iambic, but not infrequently it is 
spondaic, and even the whole group, as in the turn " in 
brightness brightest," may consist of heavy syllables : 

Who knows, to name them, the host fraternal, 

The pride of Eudra, on gleaming horses ? 
Of them the birthplace no man can tell us, 

They only know it, their common birthplace. 
With wings expanded they sweep each other. 

Like falcons fighting ; wind-loud is the sound. . . . 
In speed the swiftest, in brightness brightest, 

With beauty join they the fiercest power. 

Here " wind-loud is the sound " apes lamely w w _, an- 
other substitution found in the original; where one group 
has even a dactylic form, md vo durmatirA The whole song, 
being set before another in trishtubhs, ends with a connecting 
verse of that measure. 

Another well-known hymn, which is enveloped in only so 
much sacerdotalism as is implied in the final verse, " Let us 
honor him with an oblation " (perhaps of milk, or it may be 
of grain or of Soma), I have translated in my Religions of 
India,2 literally, though not with very close attention to the 
Vedic verse-structure. But I will repeat it with little altera- 
tion here, to show how marked even in the earliest lyric is 

1 But in dhunir miinir iva there is a grammatical correction of the older va, 
which undoubtedly stood there originally (the Pali form). 

2 p. 88. 



THE EARLY LYRIC POETRY OF INDIA. 47 

tills element of pure description. The hymn is otherwise 
interesting; since Vata {vdta^ from va, blow), to whom it is 
addressed, is Ventus, the wind-god, perhaps the same with 
"Woden, who here, " keeping the order " of time, brings the 
monsoon water-clouds in due season. The first sentence is 
an ejaculatory accusative without any verb: 

/ Now Vata's chariot's greatness ! Smashing goes it, 
^ And thundering is its noise. It touches heaven 

And makes the clouds ; skims earth, the dust uprearing — 

Then follow after all the forms of Vata, 

And haste to him as women meet a lover. ^ 

With them conjoined, together rushes onward 

The gleaming god, king of this whole creation. 

Ne'er resteth he, when on his many pathways 

He goes through air, the first born friend of waters, 

Who keeps the order. Where was he created? 

And whence arose he? Spirit of gods, this bright god, 

Source of creation, courseth where he listeth. 

His sound is heard but not his form. This Yata, 

Wind, with an offering let us (duly) honor. ^ 

Yet it is rather in recounting the great deeds of their own 
past than in describing the gods that the Vedic poets show 
their strongest lyrical power. In the first lyric following I 
have reproduced not only the caesura, but also the exact 
syllabic equivalence of the first three verses,^ though as this 
had to be united in English with stress (the Vedic accent is 
musical), in the following stanzas I have given simply a 
stress-equivalent of the quantity, not according to each verse, 
but not introducing any form for which the poets do not use 
a quantitative equivalent. The translation itself is as nearly 
literal as it was possible to make it. 

1 Literally, Come to a rendezvous. 

2 This phrase is stereotyped. 

8 That is, as in the study above, assuming the classical rule for the length 
of vowels before two consonants. But to unite this successfully, with stress 
and sense also even for one stanza, was difficult, and the fourth verse con- 
forms only by pronouncing Beas and torrent as trochees. 



48 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

This first specimen of the heroic lyric is a poem that needs 
little explanation. I give it complete, except for a stanza in 
another metre which has been tagged on to it by a later hand. 
The priest Vigvamitra, the son of Ku§ika, is represented as 
having come to the two rivers Sutlej and Beas, which run 
together in the present Punjab. They block his way. He 
bids them obey the mystic might of the priestly word, which 
is holy, somya^ and powerful. The rivers in amoebic strain 
refuse to obey. They obey only god Indra, Vigvamitra sees 
his mistake. He then addresses them humbly, and in a 
stanza of laudation to the god acknowledges Indra as their 
master. Therewith he wins their approval, and as a favor 
they sink in their channels, and Vigvamitra leads over the 
booty-seeking host of Bharatas. 

HOW THE BHAEATS CEOSSED THE BEAS AND 
SUTLEJ. 

as sung by the priest vicvamitka. 
The Poet speaks: 

From out the hills' heart, as if horses, eager, 

Tumultuous, in a race, newly loosened, 
As cows a calf lick, lapping earth, the fair streams, 

The Beas, Sutlej, iu a torrent hasten. 
By Indra loosed, and his impulse beseeching, 

Ye, swift as war-cars, to the meeting hurry. 
Where streaming together, with thick'ning billows, 

Each enters the other, ye lovely rivers. 

ViCVAMITRA SPEAKS : 

I've sought the Sutlej, the stream maternal, 
To Beas, broad-flowing and kindly, come we,* 

These two that together, like cattle licking 
A calf, hasten on to the destined union. 

1 These words " seek " and " come to " imply not only that the priest has 
come, but that he comes demanding something (that he has not only sought 
but, like Latin peto, besought), a common Vedic idiom. This the Kivers 
recognize in their reply. 



THE EARLY LYRIC POETRY OF INDIA. 49 

The Rivers speak: 

With thickening waters, we floods together 
Flow on to the union the god prepared us ; 

Ne'er to be checked is the impulse that urges us ; 
What wishes the bard that invokes the rivers ? 

VicvAMiTKA speaks pkoudly : 

Ye streams, that flow, duly in season rising. 
Stand still, obedient to my utterance holy. 

My will on the flood hath a might compelling. 
Your aid invokes Kuqika's own descendant. 

The Rivers speak repro"%inglt : 

Indra, who beareth in his arm the lightning — 
He dug our broad channels ; he slew the dragon 

That held us confined ; it is Indra rules us ; 
Fair-handed he leads us ; his might we follow. 

VicvAMiTRA lauds Indra : 

Be praised forever that deed heroic. 

The act of Indra, who destroyed the dragon. 

With bolt of lightning all your jailers slew he ; 
Out rushed the streams in a wide course rejoicing. 

The Rivers speak approvingly: 

Thy song, bard, never shall be forgotten, 
That future ages may acclaim thee always. 

In songs exalt us and never, 'mid mortals, 
Seek to defame us. We bow before thee. 

ViCVAMITRA speaks HUMBLY: 

Hark to the bard, if ye will, sister rivers ; 

He comes from afar with wagon and chariot. 
If so ye will,^ give me an easy passage ; 

To th' axle alone, ye rivers, flowing. 

1 Here the repeated word su is used for the first time, meaning " if you 
please," "kindly " (^M/a). 

4 



50 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

The Eivers speak : 

Now to thy words give we good heed, singer. 

Thou com'st from afar with wagon and chariot. 
I will bow down, e'en as a loving woman ; 

As maid to a man will I bend before thee. 

VigVAMITBA SPEAKS : 

When all of the Bharats have crossed beyond thee, 
This host of raiders that is led by Indra, 

Then forth let flow in a wide flood the waters. 
I beg for the grace of the holy rivers. 

ENVOI. 

The Bharats have crossed now, the cattle-lifters, 
The singer is blessed with the rivers' favor. 

Now streaming unceasingly fill the hollows ; 
Eun full to the brim, and be kindly ever. 

One such "hymn" as this — the original word, by the way, 
does not mean hymn at all, but simply something " well said," 
a good thing in poetry, eulogia in a broad sense — is suffi- 
cient, I think, to prove that lyric poetry in India did not 
begin with the bon-mots of the fifth century after Christ, but 
is at least as old as the oldest Greek lyric. As a matter of 
fact, the truest Hindu lyric is just this old Vedic heroic 
song, in which (as will be shown still better in the next 
example) the poet pours out his feelings in hearty praise and 
curses, rather than the gem- wrought bits of daintiness of the 
"lyric period," in which the poet seldom appears to be in 
earnest, but plays with his loves and hates as he plays with his 
delicate fancies, making exquisite poetry, but poetry which, 
like all exquisite things produced by man, is thoroughly arti- 
ficial. Elaborated passion, pretty conceits often done up in 
complicated verse, that is the decadent lyric of the so-called 
classical period. The lyric of the Vedic period is rough in 
comparison. The poet has mastered neither his passions nor 
his verse-form ; he is mostly rude in expression, as he is 



THE EARLY LYRIC POETRY OF INDIA. 51 

usually rude in feeling. His poetry is seldom the elegant 
amusement of a blas^ gentleman and never the morbid blend 
of erotic and religious sensuousness, which we find later, but 
the straight and rather rough talk of uncurbed emotion. 

In the last specimen of Vedic song the poet Vigvamitra 
sings his lay of triumph. But a still greater song was sung 
by his rival, Vasishtha. It appears that the latter at some 
time ousted the former from his place as Purohita, or priest 
of the Tritsu king, Sudds, and that Vigvamitra in anger 
went over to a band of allied kings who planned a destruc- 
tive campaign against Sudas. It is a famous battle, and is 
known in Vedic poetry as the Battle of the Ten Kings. 
Instigated by Vi§vamitra, these kings and their armies came 
against Sudds, who opposed them with only the help of 
Vasishtha, the river itself, and god Indra. Suddenly, as 
they had entered the Ravi, then shallow and fordable, which 
lay between them and Sudas, the hosts of the ten kings were 
overpowered by a flood sent by Indra, — one of the sudden 
risings common to all the great northern snow-fed rivers, — 
and so found death where they had hoped for booty. 

This overthrow is sung with biting sarcasm by Vasishtha. 
The lyric abounds in jeering puns, of which I reproduce only 
a few. The one most used is a play on the name Vigvamitra, 
which is literally " friend of all." What sort of a friend he 
was to those whom he led to death is described in taunting 
phrase by his rival. The play on the name of Lion (of the 
Punjab!) is more obvious than the one connected with it 
and contained in the etymology of Tritsu, which is literally 
the " piercer." As (the horn of) a goat pierces, so, says the 
poet, with Indra's help, but otherwise undefended, the Piercer 
smote the Lion. I omit the formal introduction, which sim- 
ply asks that Indra's good- will may continue in the future 
as in the past; as also a receipt for the reward gained by 
Vasishtha for composing this triumphal ode, which, after the 
manner of the times, was appended to the ode itself and 
sung on other occasions, to please the family of the royal 
donor. It is evident that the reward was not given till the 



52 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

song had had its effect, so that it has nothing to do with the 
real lyric. The place of this sort of verses is such as might 
have been that of an additional stanza composed by Pindar 
as a thank-offering for the reward of his services to the Syra- 
cusan and subsequently sung as part of the whole. In the 
translation of the ode 1 have generally followed the inter- 
pretation made by me some years ago, but with two or three 
changes suggested by more mature consideration.^ 1 also 
omit one stanza containing the names of some of the foes. 
The river Kavi (Parushni, so named at the beginning) is 
called at the end of the poem yamund^ the received expla- 
nation being that after Sudas had conquered at the Ravi 
he withdrew to the Yamuna (Jumna) and there fought a 
second battle with Bheda. But this seems very improbable, 
as there is no indication of any such change of position. I 
interpret yamund, therefore, as a name of the Ravi (after- 
wards transferred to the eastern river). The word means 
" twin "-stream and ma}'- as well be applied to the double chan- 
nel of the upper Ravi as to the Jumna. Nothing is more 
common in India than the transfer of a river's name to 
another stream. On the other hand, though " Bheda's " de- 
feat is mentioned elsewhere, the Rig Veda knows nothing of 
his defeat at the Jumna. 



THE VICTORY OF SUDiS, KING OF THE TRITSUS, 
OVER HIS ALLIED FOES. 

AS SUNG BT HIS PKIEST VASISHTHA IN HONOR OF GOD INDRA. 

Sudas to aid, Indra hath turned to torrents 
The shoals (regarded as an) easy fording, 

And ^ii^yuj the Lion, the god-defyer, 

Our god hath made as the flotsam of rivers. 

1 Journal of the Oriental Society, vol. xv. p. 261 fE. In the opening stanza 
the sense is not, as in common with others, I formerly thought, that Indra 
made the river easy to cross for Sudas, but that, for Sudas' sake, he turned 
the shallow river into the torrent (which drowned his enemies). 



THE EARLY LYRIC POETRY OF INDIA. 53 

Of them the leader was Turvas, the Yakshu, 

Whom followed for pillage the Matsya people, 
The Bhrigus, the Druhyus ; while o'er the river 

The, Friend his friends guided on — to destruction ! 
Friend of the Aryan ! " Friendly proved his leading — 

Like cattle tliey came to contend with heroes ! 
Sinners they, seeking to make her miscarry, 

Who witless parted the Ravi, the boundless.^ 
But he, so sage, who of wide earth was master,^ 

Embraced earth well — as a scared victim lay he. 
On bootless quest Eavi they sought for booty, — 

Not even the swiftest e'er home returned. 
To brave Sudas, as in wild haste they scattered, 

All weak and friendless now, god Indra gave them. 
Like kine on a meadow without a herdsman. 

In crowds they scattered, the Friend surrounding, 
But brilliant the herd and a brilliant downfall. 

As horse and foot they the leader followed. 
Indra, our hero, he who loveth glory. 

Cut down Vikarna's best chiefs, one and twenty, 
And strewed them around as a handy reaper 

Mows down in a moment the grass for th' altar. 
Thou Indra, who bearest in arm the lightning, 

Didst drown their renowned ones, Druhyu, Ailush; 
But we, who elected as Friend the true Friend, 

Revering thee, shouted thy name in triumph. 

The Anus, who came on a raid for booty, 
The Druhyava heroes, their sixty hundred 

— Or six by the thousand, 't is six and sixty 

They have fallen asleep and the glory 's Indra's ! 

Like a pent flood loosened we Tritsu people. 
By Indra guided, descending whelmed them, 

* Or the divine, aditi. The rirer is a goddess. This stanza has been in- 
terpreted to mean that the allies tried to divert the course of the Eavi by 
digging canals. But snv, miscarry, may be used figuratively as fail ; while 
vigrabh, sever, separate, part, may possibly have its simple epic meaning, 
attack. 

2 That is, lord and master, husband 1 Or : Strongly he encompassed earth, 
a lord : scared lay he, a sacrificial victim. 



54 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

— For evil their Friend — till to pieces shattered 

To Sudas they abandoned the joy of pillage. 
The ranks of the mighty, the boastful, sinful, 

Who knew of no Indra, them Indra vanquished ; 
He, stilling the storm of the wrathful stormer, 

Their lord in truth, tore them apart, dispersed them. 
With few to assist him, this deed did Indra, — 

With a goat(-horn) smote he a certain lion ; 
The foeman's spears, clove he with only needles ; 

To King Sudas gave he the joy of pillage. 
All thy foes, Indra, have bowed before thee ; 

Smite thou him, whoever will boast of rending; * 
Aye, strike unto earth with thy sharpened lightning 

Whoever hereafter thy praiser injures ! 
Aid to Indra gave the twinned stream and Tritsus ; 

Then despoiled he throughly the (helpless) render. 
The Ajas and ^ighrus and Yakshu peoples, 

They gave as a tribute their slaughtered horses ! 
But, Indra, not in an age of long days 

Can a man, counting, tell thy wealth of kindness ; 
Each foe that has fancied himself a godling 

Thou smit'st from on high, as thou Cambar ^ rendest. 
But they that have always rejoicing loved thee, 

And worshipped thee truly, as has Vasishtha, 
Will never forget thee, the Friend and helper, — 

So bright be the days of my lord ® forever. 

You see that even to the end the fierce anger of the old bard 
plays on his defeated rival's unhappy name, as he again echoes 
the statement that Indra is the true friend. 

Despite the roughness of the form, made still rougher 
by Englishing, I think you will admit that this lyric well 
deserves to be handed down through the ages. Its vigor and 
bitterness as well as its stirring description give it a high 

1 The true "render " is Indra himself, as in the second stanza below ("rent 
from on high "). " Render " may be the name of one of the foes, the idea being 
" make the render surrender." 

2 The demon of drought. 

* My lord, the king Sudas. 



THE EARLY LYRIC POETRY OF INDIA. 55 

place, not only in the antique collections of India, but among 
all lyrics of its time. 

But now I must leave the Vedic lyric and pass on to the 
next stage. 

The early phases of religious philosophy after the Vedic 
period are deeply colored with emotion. Not in Buddhistic 
works alone, but in the Upanishads also the wonder at the 
new-found religion is profound and often bursts forth in 
lyrical verse, as may be seen in the following: 

(As God of all, All-God, maker of all things ; 

As He that in the heart of man abideth, 
By the heart alone conceived, by mind and fancy, 

Who thus know God, they have become immortal. 
Within His light, nor night nor day existeth ; 

Being, not-being, — all is He, the Blessed. 
He is the treasure sought by Vedic poets. 

From Him was born all knowledge and all wisdom. 
Above, below, across or in the middle, 

None hath grasped God ; nor is there any image 
Of Him whose only name is this, Great Glory. 

His form invisible is and always must be. 
For He in mind and heart abides. Who know Him 

As their own soul, they have become immortal. 

Though there is here, perhaps, more fear than joy, "In fear 
I come before Thee," says the poet in the verses following, 
yet there are other passages which reflect the joy imparted by 
this new-found religion, as, for example : 

(jThe Soul in all things is the one Controller, 

Who makes His one form manifold in many. 
The wise that Him as their own soul acknowledge, 

They have eternal joy ; but not so, others. 
Among the transient He is the everlasting ; 

The only wise one He, among the foolish ; 
The one of many. Him perceive the sages 

In their own souls and feel a peace eternal. 



56 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

The sun shines not, nor moon, nor stars, nor lightning, 
Nor earthly fire, within the All-soul's heaven ; 

For He alone is the Light that all shines after, 
And by His light is all the world illumined. 

But such passages rarely attain so finished a form, and 
they may be omitted here as of too fragmentary nature to 
require more than a passing notice. Nor is epic poetry the 
place to expect fully developed lyrical expression, though in 
the frequent hymns to the gods this is often attained inci- 
dentally, and even the descriptions of the godhead are at 
times lyrical, not only in their intense striving to express the 
poet's adoration of Him who is the All, but also in the 
employment of more elaborate metres, as in this : ^ 

Beginning, and middle, and end of all beings, 
Both doer and deed He, creator and creature ; 

The worlds, when the age ends, absorbing, He slumbers, 
Till a new age beginning He wakes as creator. 

Kare too, because of the epic form, is any expression of 
feeling as regards nature. Descriptions of storms and other 
natural phenomena come down from the Vedic period, as I 
have shown, and are found also in the epic ; but there is 
little in these that reflects the poet's own feelings even in so 
small a degree as is perceptible in the hymns to the gods, 
where at least human desires play about the divine person 
thus besung. Perhaps, however, one of the few descriptions 
of nature found in the great epic (they are more common in the 
Ramayana), may prove interesting, and as it presents the emo- 
tions incident on the coming of the rains, it is not without a 
touch of the delight which we know that the poet himself 
must have experienced when the monsoon at last broke : 

^ sa adih sa madhyah sa ca 'ntah prajanam, sa dhata sa dheyah sa karta 
sa karyam ; yugante prasuptah susamkshipya lokan yugadau prabuddho 
jagad dhy utsasarja. 



THE EARLY LYRIC POETRY OF INDIA. 57 

Then came the time that ends the heat 
And bringeth happiness to all. 
Black clouds loud thundering covered space, 
And ceaseless rained by day and night. 
By hundreds and by thousands piled 
They hid the glorious sun, themselves 
With stainless lightning glorious made. 
Up sprang the crops and all the earth, 
Bewatered, full of peace and joy, 
Was filled with happy creeping things. 
Then 't was impossible to say. 
So deep the flood, if level ground 
Or heights or rivers lay beneath. 
Like hissing snakes, impetuous, swept 
E'en through the forests, waters wide, 
And made new beauty in the wood ; 
Where boars and birds, all forest things, 
Drenched with the rain, exulted loud. 
The peacocks, kokils, catakas, 
Circled about and danced for joy, 
And mad with pleasure croaked the frogs. 

As we shall see, the same motif is copied again in the later 
lyric of the classical period. And this gives to the epic lyric 
its historical value. We cannot separate it sharply either 
from the pre-epic or from the classical lyric, although the latter 
has a new growth superadded. Even the form in its simplest 
shape, that of the gloka, is still the medium of much of the 
classical lyric, not to speak of the fancy metres in the epic, 
which, as inscriptions show, may have preceded any classical 
specimens. But, of course, as the very expression epic 
lyric seems like a misnomer, so the lyric in the epic may be 
more or less intrusion, especially as it often makes scenes 
apart from the main action, or is found only in epigrammatic 
collections which were inserted whole into the epic. To 
ignore these altogether, however, is to lose links from the 
chain that really runs from the Upanishads of perhaps 400 
B. c. to the classic age of 400 A. d. and later. 



58 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

As an example of a lyric scene set apart in the epic, I will 
take one specimen describing the feelings of Arjun, the hero 
of the great epic, when as he was carried to heaven he looked 
back on earth, where he had been dwelling on Mount Mandara, 
the Blessed Mountain of antiquity. The poem is remarkable 
not only on account of its description of nature's beauties, 
and the happiness of dwelling in the open life of forest and 
mountain vale, but also because of its unique anticipation of 
the discovery that the stars, though they look small, are really 
large bodies placed farther away than the sun, huge worlds 
which shine by their own light, a light less than the light 
of God only. This discovery is vitiated from a scientific point 
of view by the addition that these remote "self-luminous" 
worlds which " on account of their distance men on earth 
think to be small as lamps " (I cite the very words of the 
text) are at the same time the souls of departed saints and 
heroes ; but that is an idea which even in our own age is 
accepted by many good people. I will give an almost com- 
plete version of this whole passage, except that I have 
exchanged the last verse for another which, though implied 
in the original, is not expressed there ; but it is expressed 
soon after and makes a better conclusion, for the original text 
continues with a further description which is too long to 
include. The metre is that of the last selection, but I have 
here allowed myself a rhymed form. The translation, how- 
ever, is literal. The date is about 200 B. C.-200' A. D. 

When Arjun, loved of Indra, came to leave the Blessed Mount 

of earth, 
On the god's chariot wreathed in flame he rose to heaven, but 

still the worth 
And beauty of that sacred hill retained his heart, and as above 
The Mount he soared, his spirit still returned, while thus his 

reverent love 
He voiced: ''0 home and sacred shrine, where holy pleasures 

never cease, 
Farewell! I leave, no longer mine, this fair abode of perfect 

peace. 



THE EARLY LYRIC POETRY OF INDIA. 59 

Thy rocks and caverns, springs and streams, how often gladdened 

they my sight; 
With fragrant flowers thy forest teems, and purest water cools 

thy height, 
Like nectar and ambrosia sweet. As a child upon its father's 

breast. 
How oft I found in still retreat upon thy bosom balmy rest. 
Which followed joyful toil. Each day I heard the chaunts of 

pious men. 
And songs of happy nymphs at play, loud echoing from thy rocks 

again. 
Yea, blissful ever did I dwell among thy vales and ridges." So 
To the Mount the hero bade farewell, Arjun, and rising, straight 

did go 
Upwards upon that gleaming car, high as we mortals see, and 

higher. 
Where self-made glory shines afar, o'er sun and moon a loftier 

fire. 
For on that super-solar height, though still below the plane of 

God, 
Beamed many a self-illumined light, which mortals, standing 

upon earth's sod, 
Look up and see but fancy small as lamps, because the distance 

vast 
Belittles those great worlds ; but all are bodies huge and brilliant, 

cast 
Through space supernal. These he saw, marvelling, and knew 

them not ; but they 
Are souls that by the heavenly law, passing from earth, so sages 

say, 
Shine evermore as stars on high, beneath the height of God, 

whose light, 
Kadiant as are in the upper sky those orbs, is yet beyond them 

bright. 

The Hindu drama, to which I now turn for a moment, 
introduces us to the third form of lyric, little stanzas of 
description and love, all centred round and sung by the act- 
ors, who are their own chorus. A detailed examination of 



60 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

these roundelays belongs rather to the history of the drama. 
In this sketch of lyric development it will be necessary only 
to point out that here in the drama is one of the lyrical 
stepping-stones from the old heroic, religious, sentimental, 
and descriptive poetry to that which, passing out of the dra- 
matic environment, becomes in the treatment of later poets 
an independent phase of literature. Independent, yes, for 
Bhartrihari of the seventh century needs no dramatic setting 
for his exquisite lyric gems, whereas such little stanzas do not 
appear alone in the works of the dramatic poets ; but not inde- 
pendent in the sense of a new creation, for all these phases 
hold together. Most clearly is this seen in the philosophical 
and — save the mark — didactic lyric of Bhartrihari. For that 
monkish philosopher composes with equal grace his Herrick- 
like songs of love, morality, and religion. But when he drops 
from more artistic versification into the gloka, his sententious 
and didactic muse is exactly the same old lady who success- 
fully conducted the epic poets through thousands of similar 
verses ; nor is there really any more lyric therein than in 
Hesiod. For example, the Hitopade^a, a late Book of Pro- 
priety, cites a §loka from Bhartrihari, " He cannot be said 
to be really born through whose birth his family is not ele- 
vated ; " just as it cites in the same metre the epic, " fruitful 
is a gift given to a poor man," and we may call lyric the one 
as well as the other, or more fittingly neither. But, on the 
other hand, truly lyric strains are found in the same metre 
in the epic as well as in Bhartrihari. So this poet links his 
present to the past, as did the epic poets themselves. 

But apart from the didactic stanzas, the model of Bhartri- 
hari's truer lyric may be found, as I have already said, in 
those bursts of song which are ever escaping the lips of the 
dramatis personce from the time of the fourth and fifth cen- 
tury after Christ. Thus when the king, in Kalidasa's drama 
of ^akuntala, sees the hermit's daughter, whom he straight- 
way loves, and finds her shy, he says reflectively : " These 
children of the forest are always inclined to be rather timid, 
but — 



THE EARLY LYRIC POETRY OF INDIA. 61 

Her eyes she drooped as she stood before me, 
She laughed and pretended another reason. 

Nature itself, her love concealing, 
Even in hiding it played her treason." 

Take out the environment, leave the stanza, and you have 
the kind of verse in which Bhartrihari delighted. 

But before Bhartrihari played lapidary to the Muse, and 
Amaru, his rival, made the fine mosaic work for which he is 
famous, Kalidasa had brought to perfection another side of 
lyric poetry. I have just read you from the epic a selection, 
complete in itself, describing Arjun's journey from earth 
to heaven, wherein we saw that the poet succeeded pretty 
well in weaving in a bit of description of earth and uniting 
it with a religious turn in describing the upper spheres. I 
think the Cloud-Messenger of Kalidasa may properly be 
regarded as a more modern working out of the same theme, 
though the motif is quite different. Here the poet makes 
a captive husband address a cloud and send by it a message 
to his wife. This gives opportunity to describe what the 
cloud will see on its journey, and with this description, es- 
pecially in the first part of the poem, must be compared as 
historical prototypes not only the scene just referred to from 
the great epic, but the frequent scenes of nature-descrip- 
tion found in the Ramayana. Even the second half of the 
poem, which describes the beloved wife's distress, must be 
looked upon as merely an historical evolution from just such 
scenes in the latter epic. So one by one, for example in 
descriptions of autumn and the other seasons, on which Kali- 
dasa has left us a beautiful poem, we may trace back the 
factors of the later lyric as they show themselves to be re- 
finements of the older poetry. But as compared with the 
older epic they have more of the erotic element and more 
extravagance of description in portraying the charms of 
nature and of woman. In this as in other regards the Ra- 
mayana stands between the great epic and classical poetry. 

But I have already over-passed the limit set by the title 



62 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

of this address, which should confine me to the early lyric. 
Perhaps, however, as I have alluded so often to Bhartrihari, 
you will allow me a few moments to show you, before I close, 
what I meant in speaking of his gem-like poems and dainty 
conceits. But I do not cite from him merely for this, but 
rather to show you how far hitherward stretches the older 
lyric as it appears in its various forms. There is, however, 
no reason to exceed Bhartrihari's time, for the still later mys- 
tic erotic type is not a projection of Vedic thought, as are 
many of the other phases found in the classical lyric. Bhar- 
trihari is not an isolated figure, but among the host of later 
lyric poets he stands conspicuous both for the versatility and 
the perfection of his genius. All that we have of him is 
contained in an artificial grouping of Three Centuries, or 
collections of miniature poems according as they are amorous, 
moral, or religious. As I have said, the latter divisions are 
not always very lyrical. On the other hand, some of the 
selections called moral might as well have been grouped 
under the head of amorous, or immoral, as Bhartrihari in his 
repentant moods regarded the other division. For he was 
an interesting character, who flitted from a monastic religious 
life out into the world and back again, not once, but as often 
as he was moved to do so. When a monk he wrote verses 
to show that love was folly, and when in love he wrote verses 
to show that a monastic life was folly. He was a man of 
emotions, and lived according to their leading, a child of the 
moment. You will liken him to Anacreon, when you read 

; The god of love a fisher is ; 

Woman, his line ; his bait, desire ; 
And man 's the fish that soon is caught 
And cooked in passion's fire. 

You must pardon the off-hand roughness of the translation 
after all I have said about exquisite polish ; but I have spent 
no time on Englishing these specimens, knowing that I could 
not give you any idea of the form. They are chosen from 
here and there — and translated perhaps all too hastily — 



THE EARLY LYRIC POETRY OF INDIA. 63 

merely to give you an idea of the content and to show you 
the difference between the lyric of the seventh century a. d. 
and the lyric of perhaps the same century B. c. or earlier, 
such as I illustrated from the Rig Veda. 

Bhartrihari's Love-Century must of course ring the 
changes on one subject; but it is pretty to see how many 
are his quaint conceits: 



C^ 



Women have honey on their lips, 

But only poison in their hearts, no doubt ; 

Hence one the mouth of women sips, 
But squeezes them to get the poison out. 

If you think this too shocking, please remember that it was 
written by a clergyman. But perhaps I had better draw 
my next selection from the Conduct-Century, or moral apo- 
thegms, a bit that may be familiar to you if you read German : 

She whom I love loves one who loves her not, 
She whom I love not, she must needs love me, 

Then whom I love and who loves her, and she 
Who loves myself, with Love himself, and me. 
May cursed be. 

But why this stanza should be called especially moral it 
is difficult to see. The next is of course put into another 
division : 

(There is a sickness falls on man : 

The heart grows faint, the eyes roll round ; 

'T is madness that no drug may calm. 
To heal it is no doctor found. 

Such sickness every man hath had ; 
The god of love hath made him mad. 

The god of love, armed with five arrows, is native to India, 
but he is not a little cupid. In fact, it is hard to define him 
except as an archer, for he is invisible, immaterial, " limbless 
Love," as the Hindus call him. 



64 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

I said that Bhartrihari glides easily from adoration of 
woman to most monastic horror of her, though oddly enough 
the following selection is found in the Love-Century. It is 
the only one of its kind I shall read, and I trust, though you 
will of course see what is coming, that you will regard it as 
only another form of poetic nonsense and let it pass without 
incriminating the translator. But even this slur must not be 
taken seriously, for it is meant to be only amusing, as may be 
seen in its rapid and comic changes of metaphor : 

/ Who made this monstrous combination. 
This whirlpool full of doubt's gyration, 
This home of wrong and town of terrors, 
This garden of tricks and store of errors, 
This bar that shuts the gate supernal, 
This entrance to the door infernal. 
This basket full of all delusion, 
This poison-honey's deadly fusion. 
This snare which catches every human, 
This strange machine — who, pray, made woman? 

But Bhartrihari was no coarse and constant railer at 
women. He believed in love and the wedding of hearts: 

Separation still is union if the hearts united be. 

But if hearts are separated then divorce should set them free. 

What again could be more perfect than this version of a 
sentiment which we are not wont, I think, to regard as more 
than a thousand years old : 

The fruit of love on earth is this, one single thought of two souls 

wed, 
If those made one have twofold thought, 'tis but the union of the 

dead. 

This, by the way, is a gloka, identical with the epic verse, 
in which rather unlyrical setting appear, as I have said, many 
of Bhartrihari's lovely stanzas, for example : 



THE EARLY LYRIC POETRY OF INDIA. 65 

Though lamps may glow and the hearth be bright, and stars and 

moon I see; 
Yet fail the light of my love's eyes, this world is dark to me. 

To paint a situation with a stroke is the ideal of the poets 
of this age, and though Amaru is cleverer in this, Bhartrihari 
is a close second in his skill : 

She talks to one and to another sends 
Provoking glances ; while a third her mind 

Finds in her heart ; whom loves she of her friends ? 
(She loves one hidden, yet to all is kind), 

is the natural answer. 

The moral specimens are, as I have said, not always such 
as we should group under this head, but here is a stanza which 
illustrates the poet's similarity to the teacher in the didactic 
parts of the epic : 

One moral law all codes proclaim — 
Kill not, steal not, do not defame ; 
Speak truth, be generous, modest, pure. 
Compassionate to all. Endure 
This law and all its rules obey, 
So hast thou found salvation's way. 

More characteristic is this little stanza : 

God made for ignorance a guise. 
With which to hide its nakedness 
And give its wearer fame ; 
Worn in the presence of the wise 
'T is e'en an ornamental dress. 
And Silence is its name. 

Here, too, is another moral stanza, beautified by poetic 
imagery : 

; The fruitful tree inclines its branches low. 
The cloud that bears rain's blessing sinks to earth; 
Virtue cares not proudly on high to go. 
And they are humblest who have greatest worth. 



66 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

Science too is drawn into Bliartrihan's net. It is true that 
the physical explanation which serves his turn in making a 
pearl the solid deposit of water in an oyster-shell may be criti- 
cised as a wild guess and not a scientific fact, but that is of 
no consequence, while on the other hand his assertion in the 
face of the old philosophy, which taught that " all we are is 
the result of what we have thought," that we are all merely 
the result of our sansarga or environment, adds historical as 
well as poetical interest to this stanza : 

/^ 

I The drop of water on hot iron steams, 

Evanishes and leaves no trace behind, 
But falling on a lotus, pearl-like gleams, 

And if its way into a shell it find 
Becomes, that water-drop, a pearl in sooth. 

Its altered self by what it meets is lent ; 
So all man's qualities in very truth 
V Arise in him from his environment. 

I almost hesitate to introduce among these light fancies 
or even among the moral and speculative thoughts the graver 
wisdom of our poet. But here too we see that he is running 
back along the grooves of change, and we must recognize in 
Bhartrihari's religious poems the same lyric, though in more 
personal form, as that which glowed forth centuries before in 
the rapturous words of the Upanishads and echoes again 
through the great epic. One stanza only of this, and I have 
done : 

Thou descendest to hell, thou ascendest to heaven, 

Hither and thither thou rushest, heart, 
Unstable, uncertain, in courses uneven. 

What willst thou ? That bliss which thou seekest apart 
Is God's ; God is thine. From all else, then, cease, 

For only in God the heart findeth peace. 



SANSKRIT EPIC POETRY. 

In few departments of literary activity is there a greater 
chasm between Greece and India than in epic poetry. The 
Iliad, as we look back to it, remains for us the one stately 
structure that closes the vista of Greek literature. In India, 
on the other hand, the epos is a relatively modern building, 
placed late and midway down the avenue that leads us to 
the first temple built by the Hindus, the Vedic edifice of 
hymns to the gods. Between these two, the Veda and the 
Mahabharata (the elder of the epics) stand other buildings, 
representing centuries of verse and prose, a whole civiliza- 
tion in various stages of slow development. The very metres 
with which epic poetry is adorned — I do not mean the metres 
of the mass, but occasional embellishments — are late forms of 
versification. There is much that is primitive in this poetry, 
but, taken as a whole, it reflects ages of culture, philosophy, 
and religion. If comparable with any western form of epic, 
that of India should then be set beside the Rhodian and 
Roman epic, or perhaps more fittingly beside the mediaeval 
romances of France and Germany. 

But in any such parallelism there is danger, and each of 
these illustrations is faulty. Apollonius and Vergil copy 
older models ; the Hindu epic is original. The romances of 
the middle ages are, again, more romantic than one of the 
Hindu epics and less ornate than either of them. But, in 
general, we may say with von Schroeder that the earlier of the 
two Hindu epics, the Mahabharata, answers for rough compari- 
son to the Nibelungen, the Ramayana to the Parcival. 

As was to be expected in poetry such as this, the wisdom of 
antiquity is engrafted upon it. But we find more than this, 
for in the Mahabharata — the Ramayana has something of 



68 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

the same sort, but it is too clearly a modern addition to 
discuss — there are interpolated tedious sermons, tractates 
on morality, philosophical essays, religious discussions, inter- 
minable laudations of the supreme gods, all set into the 
poem as distinct pieces, having nothing to do with the action, 
some of them clearly differentiated by metre from the poem 
itself. 

We must, then, if we would get at the original epic, dis- 
card this alien mass, and in many cases it is easy to see 
how the first poem has been distorted by it. In fact, the 
greater epic, as it stands to-day, is so heterogeneous that only 
the most unhistorical tj^Q of mind could view all this heap 
of goods and rubbish as the product of one uniform source. 
Such a theory has indeed actually been suggested, but it was 
too fantastic to find support, and has awakened only a passing 
interest. 

If we compare the two epics, we shall find quite a difference 
between them. The huge Mahabharata is seven times as 
long as the Iliad and Odyssey put together ; the Ramayana 
is but a quarter as long as the Mahabharata. The Ramayana 
is more symmetrical, more homogeneous, and lastly it is more 
refined, both in its visibly polished metre and in its social 
atmosphere. A further distinction is to be noticed. The 
Bharata poem belongs to the west, the region about Delhi ; 
the Ramayana, to the east, to Oudh, the region north of 
Benares. Nevertheless, the style of the two epics is in so 
far related as to be formed to a great extent on identical 
phraseology. Both epics have the same proverbs and know 
the same stories. All of this shows that the ancient tale of 
the northwest has been transplanted into the new seat of 
culture about Benares, and that the Mahabharata was com- 
pleted where the Ramayana began. In the course of this 
brief survey I cannot go into the further reasons for this 
assumption, but I may add that all the literary indications 
point to this explanation, such, for example, as that the tales 
woven into the later epic are almost always set about the 
lower Ganges. 



SANSKRIT EPIC POETRY. 69 

To turn from the finished product to the origin of these 
two poems, which arose far apart but ended in the same 
literary environment, of the source of the Ramayana there is 
little to say, for it is attributed as definitely and regularly to 
Valmiki as is the JEneid to Vergil, whom the Hindu author 
preceded by several centuries. Now, tradition ascribes the 
great epic also — that is, the Mahabharata (which means the 
great Bharata story and so may be called simply the Bharata) — 
to a certain Vyasa ; but this Vyasa is a very shadowy person, to 
whom is ascribed also the arrangement of the Vedas and other 
works, his name meaning merely arranger or disposer. In 
fact, his name probably covers a guild of revisors and retellers 
of the tale. Moreover, there is internal evidence that the 
poem has been rewritten. There is, in a word, no one author 
of the great epic. It was handed down piece-meal at first in 
ancient lays. These became recitations and, united with 
heterogeneous material of all sorts, were at last bound to- 
gether as one loosely connected whole. 

The manner of presenting the primitive lays out of which 
arose the first epic stories was as follows : At a certain 
point in the performance of a sacrifice the ritual demanded 
that two or three singers should step forward with lutes or 
lyres in their hands, and, to quote verbatim from the antique 
directions given for the ceremony : " They shall then sing 
the king or some other brave hero," and the subject shall 
be "This king fought in such a battle," "This hero won 
such a victory." Here we have recorded in a formal rule 
of the ancient ritual the very same conditions, barring the 
sacrifice, as those which gave rise to the Greek epic, the 
KXea avSpSv^ the rhapsode singing them ; and so, later on, we 
find that in India, also, the song changes to recitation. But 
in India, epic recitation never became a mere reading, except 
to the learned. It was dramatic, the reciter of the epic scene 
flung himself into the description with immense fervor, and it 
was not long before the various parts were acted, for the chief 
heroes of the epic were deified, and so had the scenes of their 
earthly life represented as a religious service. The very 



70 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

earliest mention of such epic-dramatic plays is in connection 
with the chief hero of the Mahabharata, and his godl}' 
exploits. 

I should be glad to give you a description of one of these 
mediseval mystery plays — mediaeval means in India about 
200 B.C. — as it is preserved to us in the account of a native 
scholar, who by the merest chance, as he is explaining an 
involved point of grammar, illustrates what he means by 
quotations from the life of the day, and in so doing gives 
us a pretty clear idea of the play which serves him as illus- 
tration. The painted actors, the masks, the dramatic killing 
of the foe of the divine hero, are all plainly put before us 
by this happy accident. But the details would take too 
much time and they belong rather to the history of the 
drama. They show, however, that the extant Hindu epic 
may have come in part from the drama. We must, in fact, 
enlarge our definitions of epos and drama in dealing with 
India. The lay once recited became therewith dramatic. 
There was thus drama before the drama, and these drama- 
recitations, instead of simply repeating old material, added 
to it and so created new epic scenes. For probably there 
were always such plays of demigod-heroes, just as we find 
them in village life to-day, as they were depicted 200 B.C., 
and as they are referred to in Buddhistic works. 

To sum up what we know in regard to the origin and 
growth of the two epics. Various considerations show that 
while the Mahabharata as a completed whole is later than 
the Ramayana, in origin it is older. The former, for ex- 
ample, is the epic first mentioned in the literature. It is 
impossible to assign exact dates to either epic, but while the 
lays on which the Mahabharata was based probably revert to 
a much older period, in its present shape even the narrative 
part cannot be older than the second or third century b. c, 
and its didactic masses are still later. Apart from the didac- 
tic fungus that has grown upon it, the great epic is derived 
both from lays and dramatic legends (recitations), worked 
together by various revisers. It has no one author. The 



SANSKRIT EPIC POETRY, Tl 

Ramayaua, on the other hand, is the work of a poet familiar 
with the older epic style, which he improves upon, for Val- 
miki was the first writer of what used to be called elegant 
poetry. The Hindus call it Artistic Poetry, Kavya, in dis- 
tinction from the rougher epic, which is simply Akhyana or 
Tale. Valmiki himself was very likely a contemporary of 
ApoUonius, though the material he used was undoubtedly 
older. 

Finally, one word about the metres. Both poems, as I 
have already said, have embellishments or fancy metres 
sometimes added to, rarely inserted in, the different sections 
of the poem. But the staple metres are a development of the 
Vedic octosyllabic measure, called qloka, for example : 

katham samabhavad dytitaiu bhratrnam tan mahatyayam 
yatra tad vyasanam praptam Pandavair me pitamahaih, 

and besides this the trishtubh, a verse of eleven syllables, 
having in most cases the rhythm of Horace's verse, trahunt 
que siccus maehince carinas, but much more plastic. In the 
use of these metres the Ramayana varies but slightly from 
the later classic usage of Kalidasa, whereas the Mahabharata 
is very much freer and in part admits the older license found 
in Vedic verse. 

But I think by this time you will incline to hear some- 
thing of the epic story itself, rather than of its setting. 

The plot of the great epic, the Bharata, is simply this. 
The old royal house of Kurus, living at Hastina on the 
northern Ganges, become jealous of the rising fame of the 
house of Pandus, who are the cousins of the Kurus, living 
at Indraplain (Delhi), and the Kurus plot to overthrow the 
Pandus by unfair means. For this purpose the king of Has- 
tina, called the Invincible, avails himself of the magic power 
of ^akuni (i. e. the Hawk), who knows how to play dice 
better than any man living. Nowadays we should say simply 
that the Hawk played with loaded dice, but in those times 
he was said to cheat by being a magician and by keeping 



72 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

the demon of the dice under his control. He challenges 
the Pandu emperor (Battlestrong) to gamble, and as an Aryan 
knight the latter cannot honorably refuse to accept a challenge 
either to fight or to play. This Pandu Battlestrong has just 
been crowned emperor, "All-conqueror," and his rank is 
higher than his cousin's, the king's, but he comes willingly 
to Hastina on his cousin's invitation, and very bravely loses 
everything he has, and is banished with his wife and four 
brothers. Then the Pandus plot and plan and at last get 
allies and have a great war and kill all the wicked Kurus, 
and so live happy ever after. Into this poem has been 
woven, as I have already said, a mass of tales, such as that 
of Nala, and pious discourses, such as the famous Bhagavad 
Gita ; but I must pass by these accretions and, to show the 
character of the real poem, I will translate one specimen. 
There is nothing in this extract, I think, that needs explana- 
tion. It gives the gambling scene at the beginning of the 
epic. You know that an Oriental despot may sell or gamble 
his family into slavery. I have already said that the dice 
are governed by a demon (called Kali) whom the wicked 
Hawk, ^akuni, has under control. The dice are called 
Kali's eyes or heart and are made of cowrie shells. The 
scene opens as the sly king of Hastina sits down to play 
with his cousin, the noble-hearted Battlestrong, his emperor. 
Of the brothers, who are gambled away, none is so conspicu- 
ous as Arjun, the Silver Knight, who is the ideal and per- 
fect warrior of the epic. Krishna the heroine (in so far as 
this epic may be said to have a heroine) is the polyandrous 
wife of the brothers ; but this feature is repressed as much 
as possible and in fact Krishna appears as the best loved wife 
of the emperor. The only verses here paraphrased freely are 
those explaining her position, as it is explained in the original 
not only here but in other passages. The extract as here 
given shortens the original somewhat, but otherwise follows 
it closel}^, though it is not always quite literal ; but it repro- 
duces the scene as exactly perhaps as the Occident can at 
times imitate the Orient. 



SANSKRIT EPIC POETRY. 73 

Now when the dawn awoke the earth and glory filled the sky, 
As out of Night's dark prisonhold the great sun rose on high, 
Then came the lords of Hastina and sought the gaming-hall. 
Where two by two the elders sat — long rows about the wall. 
The Hawk stood in the midst of them, beside him lay the dice, 
Within the hand of Battlestrong rested a pearl of price. 
"Now, Qakun, name thy stake," said he, " for here in hand I hold 
A pearl, whose mother was the sea, set in a ring of gold. 
It hath inestimable worth. Name thou the counter-stake." 
Then quickly spoke the Invincible : " This compact first we make : 
Cakun shall play, but mine the stake ; his loss or gain for me ; 
My crown of gold against thy pearl, whose mother was the sea." 
" Strange compact this," said Battlestrong, and lingered ere he 

played ; 
But in his hand he took the shells. "What odds to me," he 

said, 
" Who throws the dice in an honest game ? Much skill have I 

of heaven. 
Stake but enough and play me fair ; I seal the compact given." 
He flung the shells, down leaped the dice, their master's heart 

they knew ; 
With trembling haste they hid their best, their worst remained in 

view. 
''Now mine the throw," false 9^'^^^ said, and took the dice in 

hand. 
The heart of Kali shook with fear to feel his soft command. 
The dice, obedient to his will, rolled on the table tossed ; 
The Hawk looked up at Battlestrong : " Lo ! emperor, thou hast 

lost." 
" My chariot next," said Battlestrong ; " eight steeds thereto, 

well loved, 
And gold piled in, against this pearl that traitor to me proved." 
The dice upon the table rang, by magic turned and crossed, 
They rattled false from ^akun's hand. "Again, great king, and 

lost." 
" I have at home," said Battlestrong, " a treasure-house of jars, 
Unnumbered jewels in them each, with each a hundred bars 
Of heavy gold. Now thousands stake and wager like a king." 
Quoth 9akuni, " Our Hastina against the stake ye bring." 



74 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

Twice rolled the dice. "Thou losest yet," said ^akun, '^trjf 

once more." 
" A thousand maids," cried Battlestrong, " the fruit of joyful war, 
With jewels on their bosoms hung, in costly raiment clad, 
Adorned with anklets, fair to see, — these for the jars I had." 
Again he threw the trembling shells, again cried Qakun, " Lost." 
" Now, by the gods," said Battlestrong, " and if it kingdoms cost, 
I yet will win. As many men I pledge, each man a slave 
Fit for the retinue of a king, — these for the girls I gave." 
Twice rolled the dice. " Lost, emperor, lost." But now an 

angry frown 
Settled upon the emperor's face. ^' What fortune weighs me 

down 
To check my skill? My cattle all, three hundred thousand 

kine." 
Twice rolled the dice. The Hawk looked up, " Lost, emperor, all 

are mine." 
" A thousand elephants of war, four thousand warlike steeds, — 
This for my kine." The Hawk looked up, — " Lost, emperor ! 

Now, who needs 
The chariots that those chargers drew? Stake those." "Aye, 

be it so," 
Said Battlestrong, " a thousand cars of war, and swift to go." 
The dice won all the cars of war. " What, still ? " cried Battle- 
strong. 
" But sixty thousand Aryan knights to Indraplain belong. 
I stake the knights." "And lose them, sire," cried Cakun, 

" Now the rest, 
For every knight retainers hath, and human stakes are best." 
Or fear'st thou further play ? " he sneered. " Fear ? " said the 

emperor, "all 
I stake, till nothing more remains, my riches great and small, 
To win whatever I have lost. Can emperors be afraid ? 
Nay, never have I shrunk from man, whatever casts he played." 
The Hawk's eye smote upon the shells like sun on quaking frost. 
Again they trembled, rolled, and turned, — "Lo! all is played 

and lost." 

(Except his own family, Battlestrong played everything he 
had on the last throw.) 



SANSKRIT EPIC POETRY. 75 

Then spoke aside to the Kuru king his counsellor Vidur, — 
" Forbid the play ; stop while ye may, for sorrow, be ye sure, 
Will follow on the track of gain. This Hawk is false at heart. 
What mean ye, then, to leave your kin ? What think ye ? 

Will they part 
Thus calmly from the greatest throne god Indra looks upon ? 
Now hearken to a wise man's words, for all your wits are gone. 
Ye stand above a precipice, and see not to your feet ; 
Your gain is loss 3 your winnings, death ; for Justice's steps are 

fleet. 
What though our Aryan law prevents yon knights from speaking 

now, 
And if until the emperor stop they still must smile and bow 
Before the madness of their king ? Think ye, when once 't is 

done, 
That they will hand ye Indraplain ? 'T is no man's skill hath 

won. 
What if these honest fools at last see straight ? Stop while 

ye may, 
Or long shall Hastina lament the playing played to-day." 
Up flared the wrath of Hastina : ' ' Whate'er we Kurus do 
Is nobly done. Go, leave the hall ; my crown is small for two. 
Who made thee king of Hastina ? I rule myself alone. 
My will shall be my counsellor. Leave thou the Kurus' throne." 

(I shorten somewhat the dispute here. The emperor's 
brothers stand gathered about the gaming-table.) 

" All hail the great All-conqueror," the Hawk said, " much 

is won, 
And all is lost ; so now, methinks, the emperor's game is done." 
''Lost, all is lost?" said Battlestrong, "Who mocks an 

emperor's game? 
And who will check me when I play for victory and for fame ? 
I play — my crown ? Nay, that I lost. But much is left to me. 
Eldest am I, their emperor, too ; my brothers still are free." 
He spoke, but stumbled in his speech. Then cried the Hawk 

again, 
" Now, bravo, true All-conqueror, behold, we play like men. 



76 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

Here's Nakul, wortli a host of slaves, for him the dice be 

tossed." 
The dancing cowries touched the board, the prince was played 

and lost. 
" The next of age," said Battlestrong, "and he is good and brave j 
Aye, virtuous and obedient, he, my pledge is Sahadev." 
The dice won all the virtues of Sahadev the good. 
Loud laughed the Hawk and stroked the dice : ' ' Long gaming 

have we stood. 
Thy youngest brothers now are lost. It is a heroes' fight. 
And so, once more, the next of age, play thou the Silver Knight." 
A horror seized on Battlestrong ; he felt his brain grow weak ; 
But drunk with gaming was his soul, he forced himself to speak : 
" I play the Knight and all he hath," he muttered to the Hawk, 
But on the table held his gaze lest aught his fortune balk. 
He trembled like the writhing dice ; he dared meet no man's eye. 
The Silver Knight in speechless pride stood motionless thereby, 
Too loyal to his brother's throne to question or to doubt ; 
His life and freedom were the king's till the king's game was out. 
Into the air they flung the dice for the high-hearted knight. 
For his great bow Gandiva and for his horn of might. 
The eyes of Kali won the Knight and all that he held dear. 
The great horn Devadatta, whose sounding sendeth fear. 
The bow Gandiva wrought in heaven, the steeds th' immortals 

gave, 
And Arjuna the Pandus' pride became the Kurus' slave. 

(So then the next brother is played and lost.) 

" Is there yet more," cried Qakuni, " a brother or such thing. 
Or has he now in truth no more, who lately was our king ? " 
" King am I still," cried Battlestrong ; " I have myself to lose. 
I Battlestrong play Battlestrong, no challenge I refuse." 
Once more upon the table's groove danced Kali's eyes aflame ; 
Once more the Hawk looked laughing up : " Th' All-conqueror 

hath his name. 
All else is lost. Oh, foolish stake, there being aught beside. 
To play thyself, forgetting her who still remains, thy bride. 
Then stake thy Krishna, win with her all that is lost and mine. 
'T is but a little pledge to lay, this youthful queen of thine. 



SANSKRIT EPIC POETRY. 77 

We hear she hath the lucky signs, a favorite of the gods ; 

It were not wonderful if she, so wondrous, changed the odds." 

Now as he spoke, the wily foe, and waited for the word, 

The cheeks of the four brothers blanched ; they trembled as they 

heard. 
For what themselves as slaves might meet was what brave 

knights may bear, 
But Krishna was the sacred love of all, not only fair 
Beyond all fairness known on earth, but hers this heavenly 

dower — 
To bind unwilling every heart with more than beauty's power. 
For lovely she, and well beloved, yet not for beauty loved 
So much as for her winsome grace, which all men strangely moved, 
And for the gentle kindliness that crowned her more than queen, 
And made her perfect in all eyes as none had ever been. 
Still paused the king. The crafty words were buzzing in his 

brain. 
"'Tis but a throw of dice," he thought, "and all is mine again." 
" A little pledge ? " he muttered low, " nay, Krishna's form is tall. 
How stately she, how beautiful to hold- man's heart in thrall ! 
Her eyes like autumn-lotus shine, her form surpasses praise, 
Welcome as autumn welcome is after long summer days ; 
Gentlest and fairest, dearest — Nay ! If all save her is gone — 
Lo ! I am Battlestrong and king and cannot yield. Play on." 
The dice for Krishna's fate were flung, — again the emperor lost. 
*'Joy!" cried the king of Hastina, ''now let their arms be 

crossed ; 
Strip off their silks, these new-made slaves." The voices of 

the old 
Quavered across the gaming-hall and some were overbold 
And cried out " Shame ! " but sternly spoke th' Invincible to all : 
''This is no people's conference" (he said), "and kingly hall 
Is built for kings ; let no man speak." Then shrank they back 

dismayed, 
While the dull light of evil thought o'er their lord's features 

played. 
" Bring forth," he cried, "this whilom queen." To her of noble 

birth 
Prince Hardheart ran. The Pandus five bowed them in shame 

to earth. 



78 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

But to the woman's inner court sped fast that soul of sin, 
And burst into queen Krishna's room, who sat half-robed within. 
" Thy lord will see thee in the hall, now come without thy veil." 
She looked at him with wondering eyes ; her heart began to quail. 
She drew her veil across her face ; she turned to him again : 
"Prince, go and ask of Battlestrong if I be seen of men." 
Before her virtue cowered the prince, but answered : " Say'st 

thou so ? 
Thy lord is king of Hastina, he speaks and thou must go ; 
For Battlestrong staked first himself upon the cowries' cast, 
And when that maddest throw had failed he staked and lost thee 

last." 
Then answered she, '' Not lost am I whom Aryan law will save, 
If Battlestrong before he threw had made himself a slave. 
For slaves possess nor gold nor child nor wife ; then how could he 
Who first enslaved himself at dice, possession claim in me ? 
Back, Hardheart, to the elders go, and say thou com'st again. 
To know if I be slave of slave or queen of Indraplain." 

(The point raised here, in strict accordance with the law 
that a slave could not own a wife, plays a great part in the 
later development of the epic.) 

He bore her question to the hall and not an elder spoke, 
They were as mute as docile cows beneath the wagon's yoke. 
But taunting cried th' Invincible: "Who ruleth here, good 

prince ? 
Thy king hath spoken, thine to act; or does brave Hardheart 

wince 
Before the tongue of servile shrew ? " Then angry back he fled. 
He seized fair Krishna by the arms and raised them o'er her 

head, 
He stripped the covering from her face, he tore her linen down, 
He bared her body to the waist and left her half a gown. 

(I omit part of the description here.) 

But at the door fear mastered pride; her lips with terror shook, 
"Not this," she cried, "oh, prince, not this; how may I living 
brook 



SANSKRIT EPIC POETRY. 79 

The eyes of men beneath a robe that is but nakedness ? " 

" What odds," he cried, " what slaves may brook or what a 

slave's distress? 
Thou art the common wife of slaves." Then said she nothing 

more; 
But Hardheart grasped her by the locks and dragged her through 

the door. 
" Now let us see this beauty rare," exclaimed the Kuru king. 
" Is this the Pandus' famous spouse, of whom the poets sing ? 
Ill suits her such a wretched garb; tear off that ragged dress, 
And let us see this half -hid form if it have loveliness." 

Ease Hardheart clutched her by the waist and would the knot 

set free 
That men her unprotected form from head to foot might see. 
But she that was so pure of heart, who ne'er had offered wrong 
To modest thought or wifely due, stood up before the throng 
Helpless, while on her stricken lords fell her despairing eye. 
She saw them helpless as herself ; then rose her piercing cry 
To God in heaven, " Save, Vishnu, save, help Thou the Pandus' 

queen. 
If ever I have loved Thy law and ever constant been 
In thought and speech and action true — hide Thou my form and 

face. 
God, save Thy loyal worshipper, and -spare me this disgrace." 
Then lo, a wonder sent from heaven — for ere her garment fell 
A cloud-like veil in countless folds enwrapped her close and well. 
But fear came on them as they gazed, beholding how she stood, 
By man forsaken, saved of God, in stainless womanhood. 

This is not the end of this scene, but it is too long to com- 
plete, and what I have given will suffice to show that the 
great epic of India is not without a certain dramatic interest. 
Before passing on to the Ramayana I would add that this 
scene, which is the beginning of the real epic, is prefaced by 
an invocation to the Divine Bard, who tells the whole tale, an 
invocation (the text is given in part in the gloka above on 
p. 71) which reminds us of the opening of the Iliad, in 



80 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

that the game of dice is brought at once into the foreground 
as the cause of woe. The poem is related to the descendant 
in the third generation : 

What caused the game, that fatal game, 

The Pandus' grief and overthrow, 
Wherein my father's sire took part 

And won for winnings only woe ? 
What kings, thou divinest bard, 

Assembled there to judge the game, 
And who beholding it rejoiced, 

And who to hinder sorrow came ? 
This story would I hear thee tell 

In full, thou of heavenly birth. 
For this was that destruction's root 

Which grew to overwhelm the earth. 
What time the emperor Battlestrong 

Kested in Indraplain at ease, 
When he the All-conqueror's name had won 

After long wars and victories. 

The Ramayana, like the Mahabharata, has a later prefixed 
book of les enfances^ after which the real drama begins. The 
plot of this poem also, like that of all good epics, is simple. 

Dagaratha, King of Oudh, having grown old, gives up, after 
the custom of the country, his royal power to his heir, who is 
naturally Rama his eldest son and also the son of the eldest 
wife. But Kaikeyi, a younger wife, has a son Bharata, who is 
next of age. Now Manthara, a dwarf serving-maid, persuades 
Kaikeyi to plot against Rama and put Kaikeyi's own son on 
the throne. The opening part of the epic explains how this 
plot is effectually carried out. Manthara, the maid, hears 
the rumor that Rama is to be consecrated that very day and 
rushes in to her mistress, queen Kaikeyi, with this startling 
information. 

I begin at this point, condensing the first part somewhat, 
but otherwise following the original. 



SANSKRIT EPIC POETRY. 81 

" Hast heard the news," she cried, " the dangerous news ? " 
" What news ? " Kaikeyi asked, but Manthara swift 
And angrily answered, " News ? why, news of kings. 
Awake, my queen, awake, for 't is proclaimed 
That DaQarath thy lord (who loved thee once), 
Resigns his throne this very day to Eama, 
That son he truly loves." To whom the queen 
Unmoved replied, " Truly 't is unexpected 
That this should come so soon, but long expected 
That this should happen ; either now or then — 
What matters when ? Why wake me for such tale ? 
Could this not wait ? Nay, I rejoice to hear 
The happy news, for Rama Bharat loves. 
And Bharata loves him, nor see I aught 
Of danger here." Then wrothful cried the dwarf: 
" foolish queen, a rival's son to love 
More than thine own, who sure is nobler far. 
And were himself made king, being next born 
After this Rama, did nor Rama live 
And bar his way to royalty, — but now 
Bharat must live inglorious." — "What, thou fool," 
The queen replied, " and is it then disgrace 
To be a younger son ? " " Nay, queen, in faith, 
'T is not a shame," she answered, " yet if Bharat 
Could set his fate aside and reach the throne, 
'T were so much more a glory. O my queen, 
Act, ere the time be past." Now speaking thus 
She stirred the queen, within whose eyes a fire 
New-lighted burned, and thus Kaikeyi spoke : 
" Thy wit is keen. If any way I knew 
To compass this, be sure I should not falter — 
But how leave Rama out ? Aye, if the gods. 
Remembering all that I have done for them, 
Had but in turn proved kind, some lucky hap 
Might well have changed the scale ; 1 know not what, 
Rama's rash bravery or his father's whim. 
One of the thousand oft-appearing turns 
That mar young princes' fortunes — but to-day 
I see no hope." " Yet I," cried Manthara, " I, 

6 



82 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

Who love thee well, had I but known before, 

Had soon devised a plan, and even now — 

Listen, my lady, did'st thou not one day 

Tell me, aye, surely thou did'st tell me, thus : 

The king was in thy chamber, as I think. 

And dallying with thee. Was there not a boon 

He granted thee, not named, but to be claimed 

Thereafter, as thou would'st ? 'T was years ago, 

And yet methinks I still remember it. 

Recall the boon. 'T was not a simple promise 

Such as men make to women and forget. 

But sworn to by the gods and by the soul 

Of him that promised. Claim that boon to-day. 

Tell DaQaratha he is bound by oaths 

To grant the boon, and say : ' This boon I ask : 

Let Rama banished be for fourteen years, 

To roam the woods that south of Ganges lie, 

And Bharat in his stead be king of Oudh, 

Till Rama doth return,' — if he return. 

Distrust it not, the plan will work the cure. 

For DaQaratha is a weak old man, 

Else had he never thus surrendered power; 

And well he knows he stands upon the road 

That leads direct to the gods, the gods he swore by. 

A younger man, stronger and far from death. 

Might disregard those deities. Short of murder, 

Which were a crime to overpass his strength. 

He will not break his oath. Remember, lady. 

That ancient proverb, which all men repeat — 

' Man reaches perfect joy but once in life.' 

Seize now thy joy. And here 's another saw : 

* The water's gone and now he builds the dike.' 

Ah, queen, or e'er the water of success 

Be utterly gone, bestir thyself." 

Then spoke 
With rapturous haste Kaikeyi : " dear dwarf, 
Let others call thee hideous, but to me 
Most beauteous thou for this thy beauteous thought. 
I do believe thou read'st the king aright, 



SANSKRIT EPIC POETRY. 83 

For he was ever most intent on gods, 

Pious past all belief, and now so old, 

Weak as thou say'st — aye, truly, 't is a chance. 

I shall risk much ; but if the trick succeed, 

Then ask me boons. Go, Manthara, call the king. 

Tell him I 'm sick and in the chamber of wrath 

Have hid myself and lie upon the floor 

In uncontrollable weeping. Strip my arms 

And bosom of jewels, fetch my saddest robe ; 

Go call the king ; tell him thou knowest not 

Wherefore I weep, but thrill his heart with fear 

Of some vague trouble, bid him hasten. Go ! " 

She spoke, the maid obeyed, and, as they planned, 

Kaikeyi, stripped of all her jewels, lay 

Fair as a goddess on the chamber floor. 

With heart aflame but wrapped in seeming grief. 

I omit here a Sai'ga, wherein is described how the hunch- 
back executes her mission. She calls the king, and the latter 
comes to the chamber of wrath, — a boudoir or sulk-room, — 
finds the queen, Kaikeyi, prostrate on the ground, and at 
sight of her beauty and wretchedness feels himself smitten 
afresh with the arrows of love. He asks her very gently why 
she is angry. The poem continues : — 

Then spoke the queen Kaikeyi to Daqarath, 
The aged king whom Love still pierced with darts : 
" Thou hast not vexed me. 'Tis not anger holds 
Thy queen to sorrow, but my heart 's a wish 
Not yet accomplished, therefore lie I here, 
Grieving. So now, if thou indeed dost love, 
Fill this desire. But never ask, dear lord, 
For what I long ; which I will then reveal 
When this my wish is granted. For so much 
I have it at heart, that only this one thing 
I make that boon, which, as thou wilt remember. 
Long given I ne'er have claimed." 



84 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

Thereat the king 
Looked tenderly upon her as she lay- 
In the beauty of tears and fingered her long hair 
Loosened in supplication, while he spoke : 
" doubting heart, and wilt thou never learn 
How DaQaratha loves thee ? On this earth 
There is none dearer unto me than thou 
Excepting Rama. By his head I swear — " 

You will notice here that we have a case of real " dramatic 
irony." The epic has in fact the very form and action of a 
drama in these vivid scenes. 

" Excepting Eama. By his head I swear 

To grant whatever thou askest, aye, by him 

My dearest son, the pride of my proud race, 

In whom I live, whom not to see were death, 

By him I swear. Erom out my bosom pluck 

The heart if 't is thy pleasure ; take what else ; 
■ But doubt me never ; e'en as I trust thee, 

So shouldst thou trust thy lover. Have thy wish. 

The boon is granted and I renew the bond." 
When thus the king lay fairly in her net 

Up sprang the queen and spake : 

'* Shouldst thou refuse 

Now thou hast sworn, lo, I myself will die, 

And this shall be foul murder on thy head. 

So hear my wish. Thou consecratest Rama. 

Bid that this consecration cease, and turn 

The holy rites to Bharata, my son. 

But as for Rama, for nine years and five 

Let him be banished unto the forest dark 

Of Dandaka, that south of Ganges lies. 

In deer-skin clothed, a hermit let him live. 

But king of Oudh before the sun goes home 

Let Bharat be proclaimed. Behold, the boon, 

Granted already, thus I name ; which thou, 

As thou lov'st truth and honor, consummate, 

Or be forever that accursed thing, 

A king that breaks his oath." 



SANSKRIT EPIC POETRY. 85 

So Kaikeyi ; 
But while she spoke, as were he in a dream, 
The king upon her gazed. So looks a deer 
One moment shocked to stillness as he sees 
A tigress crouch. Then like an angry snake, 
Which, fury-blind and raging, but encharmed, 
Still helpless writhes, within its circle bound. 
Whence no escape, he hissed : " Thou traitress vile 
What ill hath Rama done thee ? What have I ? 
Like his own mother hath he treated thee, 
Thou poison-hiding viper that unknown 
I deemed a thing divine. What, Rama, Rama ? 
My best loved son, my soul, my very self, 
My life, my all ? Nay, surely 't is a' trick 
To test my love for Bharat. What, no trick ? 

oath that I have sworn, beast that hold'st 
My heart within thy fangs, what prayer can move 
Thy savage spirit ? Is any bitter means 

Of self-abasement open ? As for me, 

1 shrink at naught that promises me shame. 
If but that shame protect the son I love. 
See me, Kaikeyi, as before the gods 
Suppliant I lie, who never begged before. 
Be pitiful, queen, unsay the spoken word. 
The king of Oudh I kneel, a poor old man, 
Entreating only mercy. Take thou all 

I have ; my realm from east to western ocean 
Extends its wealth to thee. Take all save this. 
Look where I lie beseeching, I, the king — 
My tears are on thy feet." 

So, whelmed in grief, 
Babbling his woe, lay the great king of Oudh. 
But him the queen Kaikeyi, full of scorn 
And wrath, addressed : 

" Ask mercy of the gods 
If thou dare break thine oath. Hark, Daqarath. 
Thou hast lived long, and ever 't was thy boast 
To honor truth and virtue. Was all this 
But idle words ? And shortly, when thou seest 



86 INVIA OLD AND NEW. 

The gods in heaven, what wilt thou answer them, 
If they shall question — ' She to whom I swore 
Sits cheated of her oath ' ? shameless king ! 
Nay, having promised, thou art bound. Why whine 
Like a base beggar, crouching here for alms 
He ne'er will get ? Shall I surrender now ? 
I yield no single particle of this oath. 
Hear, all ye gods, who witnessed what he swore, 
Ye gods to whom this impious wretch would lie. 
Witness for me if Da^arath keep his word 
Or prove a perjurer in the face of heaven. 
. Behold ! They hear me, all the heavenly host, 
Who know thy oath. Thou dar'st not break the oath. 
'T is mine, 't is mine, I claim the boon intact. 
Bharat shall reign." But as she spoke, the king 
Sank at her feet and fainted where he lay. 

You must not imagine, however, that the whole epic is 
carried out in this intense fashion. The scenes immediately 
following are, it is true, also dramatic. The king revives. 
There is a fine scene where he tells Rama what has happened, 
and Rama, despite the entreaties of his mother and the urgent 
request of his brother and friends that he should resist, de- 
clares that he will carry out to the full the letter of the oath, 
even when Da^aratha dies of grief, as happens soon after. The 
virtuous Bharata, when he learns of the circumstances, will 
not consent to reign. Finally as Rama insists on fulfilling 
the king's promise and leaves the city with his young wife 
Sita, Bharata consents only to act as his viceroy during his 
absence, and as a sign of submission to Rama, he wears the 
latter's sandals on his head, a protest against his own eleva- 
tion. But after these city scenes, which are more or less 
dramatic, the poet or poets who rewrote the epic give a 
long interlude which is less dramatic than idyllic, Rama's 
wife and his faithful brother Lakshman go with him, the 
latter as a fidus Achates, and they pass several years in 
hermit life. The situation is rather difficult, for as the poet 
has to indicate a long lapse of time ere begins the war which 



SANSKRIT EPIC POETRY. 87 

ends the story, there is little for him to say except to describe 
an occasional feat of Rama's, and so he spends a good deal 
of time in reporting the conversations between Rama, his 
wife, and his brother. It is especially these scenes which 
make the Ramayana a romantic epic in contrast with the 
heroic style of the older epos. Sita is a charming crea- 
tion, an unaffected innocent and devoted young wife, eigh- 
teen years old, who worships Rama ; but she often appears 
as a mere lay figure, listening while Rama makes love 
to her or explains the beauty of the scenery. There is a 
great deal of sentimentality, but most of it is contained in 
descriptions of nature. At Citrakuta, for example, one 
complete Sarga (with only a few repetitive verses omitted) 
is as follows : 

There dwelt he long and for the mountain felt 

A true aiiection. And oft his wife to please 

And his own mind distract, as might the king 

Of all the heavenly gods show to his spouse 

The joys of heaven, so Rama showed to Sita 

The mountain Citrakuta, saying : " Lo, 

Not loss of rank nor absence from my friends 

Distress my heart, who view this lovely hill. 

See how this mountain rises toward the sky 

With glittering peaks and bright with various birds. 

Here silver white the rocks, red, yellow, there, 

Some crystal and some topaz, some like flowers ; 

Some gleam like mercury or a distant star, 

Gemming this glorious mountain, through whose shade 

Wander the wild beasts, tigers, bears, hyenas, 

And deer they harm not. Many too the birds ; 

And see again the trees, whose flower and fruit 

And wealth of leaves are here displayed — the mango, 

Pippal and tamarind, with the great bamboo, 

Love-apples, fig-trees, citrons — all are here, 

While bright cascades leap broken down the hill. 

What man but joyed to smell this cave-born breeze 

Laden with scent of blossoms? Many autumns 



88 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

With thee, perfect one, and Lakshman here, 

Devoid of sorrow could I live. I love 

This beauteous mountain filled with flowers and birds. 

And dost thou, Sita, too rejoice with me 

To dwell in Citrakuta, seeing all 

These various things that make for our delight, 

The rocks of many colors, red, green, black. 

The plants and shrubs that gleam a thousand fold 

On every side, the glittering peak above? 

All here is loveliness — here let the years 

Glide past us, quickly numbered, as we bide, 

I, thou, and Lakshman in this dear retreat. 

For living here with him and thee 

Joy will be ours and greater fame, 

The oath my father swore be kept, 
And honored be our name." 

The last stanza T have rhymed and set in a different metre 
to show that the poet here, as he very often does elsewhere, 
changes the rhythm in the final stanza of the canto. The 
rhyme itself does not actually occur in this place; but in 
many other passages we find not only the weak rhyme of 
assonance, but a pure rhyme, sometimes extending over 
several of the rhythmic periods. 

But to continue : After a time, while Rama is away, Sita is 
carried off by a giant. Her recapture forms the plot of the 
latter part of the epic. Here we have a very interesting 
analogy with the plot of the Iliad. Just as Helen is carried 
to Troy, so Sita is carried to Lanka, and her outraged husband 
with his faithful brother forms an alliance with the ruler of a 
South Indian kingdom (where the men, to the higher Aryan 
type of the North, appear like apes and are actually spoken of 
as such), besieges Lanka and wins Sita back. A whole 
book is devoted to the battles that take place on the plain 
which surrounds the city. As in the Iliad, the king of Lanka 
comes out on the city walls and inquires the names of the 
different heroes, though the conventions of Hindu social life 
do not permit Sita to appear, as does Helen in the Iliad. She 



SANSKRIT EPIC POETRY. 89 

is kept in the women's part of the city, and it is a spy who has 
gone and returned that tells the king. And as Achilles could 
be wounded only in the heel, so Ravana (but he is here the 
ravisher) cannot be killed except by a mortal's hand. This 
has led some scholars to suppose that the Hindu epic was 
influenced by the Greek model. But such similarities are 
not striking enough to prove right this audacious attempt to 
deprive India of her native epic. For my part I should be glad 
to believe it, for just as soon as this turn of affairs takes place 
we are plunged into a series of endless battles and fighting- 
scenes which, to say it with the fear of the Greeks before my 
eyes, are just as tedious as are the fighting-scenes in the 
Iliad. I shall give you no specimens of this kind of epic writ- 
ing, which is common to both Indian epics. You know it 
already, how one hero fights till he dies and then another fights 
in just the same way, the warriors being described in the same 
old phrases, and doing the same impossible things. The Hindu 
genius is, however, more extravagant than that of the Greek. 
For here we have not only giants who think nothing of pick- 
ing up a mountain and hurling it on a foeman, but even foe- 
men who, though to be sure really shocked by the mountain 
falling on them, yet bravely survive. But as in Homer, not 
only do they not die when they ought to, these interminable 
heroes, but even after we have conducted them through 
several cantos of myriad darts and crushing mountains, and 
have at last with a great sigh of relief reached the place 
where the poet lets them expire, we find presently, to our dis- 
may, that without any warning or explanation of where they 
come from, they pop up again on the battlefield, as fresh and 
lively as ever, and have to be killed all over again. This is 
monotonous and tiresome. It is, however, according to the 
taste of an earlier age, and we should be as foolish to criticise 
adversely such battle-scenes as to condemn fairy-stories. 
There is only one thing to do, let them pass unread. We of 
this later age and western world are more for thought than 
for action. The ancients regarded character sketches as 
ancillary to a spirited tale, and if they rejoiced in giants, 



90 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

genii, apes, and devils, and we do not, it is our fault if we fail 
to appreciate their pleasure.^ 

The end of this long contest brings us face to face with 
another example of the difference between Occidental and 
Oriental notions, this time unhappily where it affects the 
chivalry of Rama. You must remember that Rama was 
robbed of Sita when he was away from his hermitage. He 
has only Sita's word for it that she was carried away unwill- 
ingly. She has been a long time in the ruffian's palace. 
When she is rescued, Rama, who has been described through- 
out as most devotedly attached to her and has really never 
doubted her innocence, thinks it incumbent upon his good name 
to prove that Caesar's wife should be above suspicion. With 
apparent sternness he therefore bids her begone, well knowing 
that she will appeal to the fire-ordeal, and that her innocence 
will be proved to all the world by the god of fire himself. 
" For otherwise," he says, " the world would speak ill of mj^ 
pure wife," Sita herself proposes the fire-ordeal, and after 
invoking the proper gods who witness truth, especially the 
fire-god, walks into the flame. Needless to say, she soon 
walks out again unharmed, to the great joy of all the by- 
standers, and falls into Rama's arms ; nor has she any reproach 
to make for his putting her to this test, so I do not know that 
we are called upon to blame him, though the scene certainly 
detracts from the effect of the finale. 

The poem ends here. The fourteen years are over. A 
kindly deity wafts the party back from South India to Oudh. 
Bharata is found still acting as viceroy, only too glad to re- 
linquish the throne to Rama ; and all ends well. 

But now I must cut short this glimpse into an antique life, 
distant in space as in time, a life of desire and hope, intrigue, 
brutality, if you will ; an unfamiliar life, where it is a point 
of knightly honor to accept a challenge to play as well as to 

1 Since this address was given (Jan. 1901) a very interesting study of the 
demonology of this epic has been published by Angelo de Gubernatis, who, 
in his Su le orme di Dante, has shown the possibility of indirect borrowing on 
the part of the Italian poet from Hindu sources. 



SANSKRIT EPIC POETRY. 91 

fight, the life of a far-off people loving strange gods ; but at 
the same time thoroughly human, and noble withal, where 
women are loved faithfully, where even a king may not break 
his oath ; full of passion, but filled also with a very modern 
appreciation of the beauty of nature — a glimpse, I trust, not 
without value for us all.^ 

1 It is of interest to notice that some of the quaint touches in the ancient 
epic are not unparalleled in the life of modern Hindus. Thus the episode of 
Bharata carrying Kama's sandals on his head may be compared with the 
action of Ranuji Sindia, who, about 1700, " carried the Peishwa's slippers, to 
contrast his original with his subsequent condition," as is narrated by Grant 
Duff, in his History of the Mahrattas, vol. i. p. 480. The dramatic epic has 
never lost its charm for the Hindu, and instances are known in modern times 
where military operations have been suspended that the chieftain might at- 
tend the performance of one of the Kathas, or dramatic epic recitations. Per- 
haps the last formal epic written in India is the long "religious metrical 
drama " of Padre Francisco Vaz de Guimaraes, in thirty-six cantos and con- 
taining sixteen thousand verses, representing the mysteries of the incarnation, 
passion, and death of Christ. It is called a Puran, or History, and was writ- 
ten in the corrupt Marathi dialect of Bombay, in 1659. A specimen of this 
Christian imitation of the favorite Hindu Katha is given in Da Cunha's Origin 
of Bombay (1900). 



A STUDY OF GODS. 

What is the origin of gods ? Herbert Spencer says that 
they are originally ghosts, even the sky-gods and storm-gods 
of India. The comparative mythologist replies that all gods, 
even ghost-gods, are derived from a more primitive group of 
gods, which at bottom are personified natural phenomena. 
On the other hand, the interpreter of modern folk-lore asserts 
that the earliest gods are fairies and "spirits," and regards 
the ghosts of Spencer and the divine natural phenomena of 
Max Miiller as merely magnified forms of gnomes and 
giants. 

In this matter India is beautifully fitted to be the object of 
scientific research, for while Greece and Rome are, as it T/ere, 
museums of the remains of dead gods, India is a divine 
menagerie where, still alive, are to be found all the gods or 
kinds of gods we read about in classical antiquity. Nor do 
we have to grope through literary remains for slight indica- 
tions of the processes which gave rise to divinities ; each 
process is clearly revealed in present conditions. Since, how- 
ever, there is, besides this, another advantage in the fact that 
the still fertile folk-lore of to-day can be traced directly back 
through a literature more than three thousand years old, we 
may hope to find some light on the problem of divine origins 
in studying the present beliefs of the Hindu, and comparing 
them with his theological annals. It will, for instance, be a 
distinct gain if we can separate the confused mass of Hindu 
gods into categories distinguished by certain marked features. 
It will be a still greater advance if we can determine whether 
these categories have existed since the earliest times, and dis- 
cover which gods are likely to survive a change of home. 



A STUDY OF GODS. 93 

Gods of Phenomena. If I begin with the gods of per- 
sonified natural phenomena, it is not from a wish to lay undue 
weight upon this category, but because these divinities occupy 
the most prominent position in the oldest records. From the 
hymns of the Rig Veda we learn that the first gods of this 
class were Dyaus, that is Zeus ; Ushas, that is Eos, aurora ; 
Agni, that is ignis; and Soma, the moon-plant, Persian haoma. 
They who deny the primitive character of sky-gods are com- 
pelled to assume that Father Sky was an imitation or transfer 
from another class. But this is opposed to the earliest account 
of Aryan civilization, wherein Father Sky, or the Sky-Father, 
appears as a god so antique that his name is preserved in 
Greece, Rome, and India.^ Other similar cases of primitive 
deified phenomena might be added, such as Sun and Mother 
Earth, but it is sufficient to establish the class. By imper- 
ceptible degrees we may pass from these gods to others, which, 
while they are no less personified natural phenomena, are 
usually grouped in different classes, even by those who postu- 
late one origin for them all. Such are not only sun and 
clouds, but mountains, rivers, trees, and stones. Without any 
hard-and-fast line of demarcation, these, again, stand grouped 
with such divine beings as battle-axes and war-drums. Some 
of these are personified natural phenomena; and some we 
may prefer to call personified unnatural phenomena. But 
they are all alike in this, and differ in this from the gods of 
other categories, that they are objective phenomena, which, 
though devoid of recognizable individual volition, yet seem 
to possess the power to harm or benefit at will. To prefix the 
word " personified " to this general group is really unneces- 
sary. To the early Aryan, as to primitive peoples generally, 
the notion that things are not persons, not the idea of per- 
sonified things, would have appeared new and startling. But 
there is nothing peculiarly antique about this point of view. 
The modern Hindu villager regards everything as alive and 
animate. Rain and hail are not only sent by a cloud deity ; 
they are themselves conscious and have volition. If a hail- 

1 Zeus-pater, Ju-piter, Dyaus-pitax. 



94 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

stone wishes, lie (to speak with the native) will injure a 
flower-bed ; but if the hailstone sees a knife set up over the 
flower-bed he will turn one side to avoid it. 

As late as our era, it was still the belief of the educated in 
India that mountains and rivers were alive, and could propa- 
gate their species. Both these divinities are exalted in the 
Vedas and are regarded as true gods. To-day they are still 
revered in the same way. The peasant prays to them, and 
believes they are instrumental in his welfare. Moreover, it 
made no difference to the Vedic believer whether the object 
he worshipped was natural or artificial. Thus he worshipped 
the sword, the furrow, the mill-stone, just as to-day every ar- 
tisan worships his tool, every gardener his spade, every 
farmer his plough. This is, therefore, not totem- worship. It 
is in some cases fetish-worship ; but it is impossible to draw a 
hard-and-fast line between fetishism and the worship of nat- 
ural phenomena. The deity of a hill is the hill itself in the 
first instance ; but in India, especially in the North, — where, 
to the eye, the hills pass into mountains, the mountains pass 
into cloud, and the cloud into sky, — the plastic nature of 
this belief is especially well preserved. Exactly as the peas- 
ant worships the sky-god, cloud-god, and mountain-god, so he 
worships the god of an uncouth rock, and the god of a 
strangely shaped pebble, which he may carry with him. 
Each is a spirit in phenomenon or phenomenon personified, 
for the native villager or tribesman makes absolutely no dis- 
tinction in this regard. 

All this by no means forbids the assumption that a deity of 
this class may become a deity of another class. It is curious 
to see that, in the most striking case of this sort in modern 
times, in contravention of Spencer's theory, the Vedic sun- 
god, who shows not a trace of having been the spirit of a 
mortal, but was first worshipped simply as the hot red ball in 
the sky, is to-day worshipped in many districts as the soul of a 
dead Raja, though elsewhere he still maintains essentially his 
Vedic position. 

The chief gods in India originating in personified phenom- 



A STUDY OF GODS. 95 

ena are those of which I have already spoken, — sky, earth, 
sun, moon, clouds, storm (lightning), mountains, rivers, 
trees, and also stars. The worship of the last is as old as the 
Rig Veda, but it is not so pronounced as in later times, when 
astrology came to aid stellar divinity. At a later period, stars 
were revered not only as celestial deities, but as the homes of 
the souls of the dead, and finally as the self-luminous souls 
themselves. Only in modern times and in a restricted area 
appears the belief that stars are the sheep of the shepherd 
moon. Storm-gods are early creations, and modern gods of 
the same sort show that they may be made independently of 
ghosts, although it is perfectly true that the ghosts of certain 
well-known people are also revered as storm-devils to-day in 
some localities. But apart from these there is the modern 
" East-wind " god, openly revered and placated as a mere 
physical phenomenon, and the whirlwind-god Bagalya, who 
is as purely physical as the Vedic " one-footed " god of the 
cyclone or water-spout, whichever he may be. So in the 
epic, Kmidadhara is at the same time a " water-bearing " 
cloud and an intelligent godling, who bows down to the 
great gods and talks with them.^ 

Tree-worship has been the object of much extravagant 
speculation, but the true explanation has been given by the 
author of " The Golden Bough," who says that trees are no 
exception to the rule that the savage in general regards the 
whole world as animate. Certain trees, because they are fa- 
vorites of certain gods, are particularly holy, and others are 
holy because they are totems and ancestors ; but trees are in 
general divine (apart from their dryad spirits)^ and especially 
any useful or beautiful tree. The same is true of plants, 
many holy plants being medicinally valuable and therefore 
sacred. 



1 Mahabharata, xii. 272. 

2 This was a point debated by Brahmans and Buddhists. The Buddhist 
denied that the tree itself was animate, and admitted only a " spirit in the 
tree." The Brahman recognized a tree-spirit, but also a spiritual, animate 
tree as well. 



96 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

There are in Hindu literature other divinities of this class 
which may be called poetical gods. Such are Day, Night, 
Twilight, the Year, the Fortnight, and other phases of time 
and the moon. They are chiefly poetical or ritualistic, but 
some of them in a more or less veiled form are actually wor- 
shipped to-day. Thus the Year and his sister Holi, the 
Spring, are worshipped, and so is Nissi, Night. In Vedic 
times worship was paid to the remains of sacrifice, because it 
had been in contact with the gods. " Even a stone," it is 
said in the Hitopade§a, "becomes a god when set up by 
priests." So, to-day, the ignorant priest worships not only 
the stone idol, but even the iron chain which hangs in his 
temple. The chain itself is a real and separate god because 
it has been in contact with the divine. Anything peculiar in 
itself becomes a god ; anything, again, that has been con- 
nected with a god, though not in itself peculiar, becomes a 
divinity. Thus from the earliest Vedic period we have the 
worship of amulets and talismans, partly as being useful in 
themselves, partly as having been associated with useful 
divinities, whose power they have, so to speak, imbibed and 
retained. 

Gods of the Imagination. The gods of the next cate- 
gory are invisible spirits, malevolent or benevolent, which aid 
or injure man. Such are the giants, fairies, and sprites, which, 
from the Vedic period onwards, have affected man's welfare 
without being referred by him to other origin than that of 
pure fancy. Here it is necessary to distinguish carefully be- 
tween ghost-spirits and such sprites as have been defined. 
The Rig Veda recognizes the difference. It has a special cult 
of ghosts, but at the same time it has a cult of fairies. " One 
hears strange noises and sees strange sights in the woods 
after dark, — that is the Maiden of the Forest." This belief 
in gnomes and fairies is synchronous with the worship of sky- 
gods. Just as to-day the peasant worships the great invisible 
gods, but reveres no less these invisible spirits, so he has al- 
ways done, as far back as literary evidence extends. As 
these numina are all more or less alike, it is only necessary 



A STUDY OF GODS. 97 

to point out that, apart from pure creations of fancy, there 
are demons which are ghosts. These ghost-giants, again, are 
sometimes confounded with phenomenal deities. A very 
good example of what may result from such confusion is 
given by the figure of Bhimsena. He is first a national hero. 
Then he is revered as a ghost-god. Then he is revered 
again as a storm-god. Some malevolent spirits of modern 
times are clearly and historically ghosts of well-known men, 
like the village gods known as Birs, Latin vir, that is, 
Heroes. But, on the other hand, there remain many spirits 
which are not the remains of a mortal. Again, some fairies 
are phenomena. Such are the Apsarasas, which, as their 
name shows, are " water-nymphs," scarcely to be differen- 
tiated from divine water revered as a divinity. But their 
consorts, the angelic Gandharvas, appear to be dissociated 
from all material substance, though at a late period they are 
identified with the stars. 

Both these sorts of divinities are Vedic. Soon after, and 
perhaps really synchronous with them, appear the Yakshasas, 
beautiful genii, chiefly of the woods, creations of the imagina- 
tion ; the Rakshasas, gigantic fiends ; and the little Bhuts, 
"beings," or demons whose type is Vetala, a Bhut that is 
to-day in process of becoming identified with the greatest 
god in the pantheon. The ancient Vedic spirits of this 
class, Daityas and Danavas, are still religiously worshipped as 
Daits and Danes. On the other hand, the bright Devas of 
the Veda, gods of natural phenomena, have now been gen- 
erally reduced to the condition of Bhuts, and under the 
modern name of Deo are worshipped as insignificant spirits. 
Dyaus himself became in the epic period a sort of Hermes, 
famous chiefly for his skill in thieving. It is, therefore, im- 
possible to say in each and every case that a spirit or fairy 
has always been what it is to-day. But, on the other hand, 
since in the earliest times the spirits of the dead are distin- 
guished from the Bhuts, and the latter are looked upon through 
the whole course of literature as unembodied spirits or sprites 

and nothing more, exactly as they are regarded to-day, it is 

7 



98 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

clearly not correct to identify Bhuts, on the strength of an 
a priori argument, with ghosts or with natural phenomena. 
So the Vedas know the " Elves," etymologically identical with 
Ribhus, the Vedic name of these clever artisan spirits, and 
there is not the slightest reason to identify them with natural 
phenomena, as has often been done. They and their class are 
transcendental, as are the fairies of our nurseries. 

Another sort of imaginative deities includes the " wonder- 
cow," " wonder-bird," and " wonder-tree " of post- Vedic my- 
thology. These, too, are still believed in, though they are not 
invoked and worshipped as they once were. No particular cow 
is thus glorified. The fancy plays around the concrete " giver 
of good things," as the cow is called, till it evolves an arche- 
typical divine cow, which gives everything. The Vedic gods 
of Love and Anger, with all the later host of these divinities, 
are abstractions of emotions, just as the wonder-cow is the 
abstraction of a concrete cow. These gods, which are real and 
worshipped, are surely not referable to ghosts or personified 
natural phenomena. Again, from these to the intellectual or 
logical gods there is but a step. The Vedic period knows the 
divine, primordial giant, whose members are the universe, a 
crude pantheism found in several other parts of the world. 
Worked upon by the priestly imagination, this god becomes in 
the Atharva Veda the primordial Support, Skambha, who is 
dissected in a philosophically grotesque analysis of the uni- 
verse. To the close of this Vedic age were familiar Vac 
(Latin vox), a philosophical deity ; Brihaspati, the later Brah- 
man, " lord of prayer," a religious deity, whom the " goddess 
Gayatri" (that is to say, the personification of a particular 
prayer) and a large number of similar deities follow. The 
god of death, again, must have his secretary, Citragupta, who 
is invented at a later date. There must be a special god of 
battle, suited to the post- Vedic age, and Skanda is imagined 
(whom, to be sure, some have wished to identify with " Alek- 
sander "). We cannot go back to any literary period where we 
do not find alongside of the worship of sky-gods, ghosts, and 
demons, the worship of some abstract powers. Even Infinity, 



A STUDY OF GODS. 99 

Mercy, Wisdom (as an active, instructing goddess), and other 
such deities appear during the Vedic age, though probably- 
most of these are not of the earliest period. This evidence 
of the past is particularly valuable as showing that primitive 
superstition of the grossest kind may be contemporary with 
the creation of abstract divinities. Conversely, as we see in 
the modern life of the people, the most philosophical creeds 
may exist alongside of the most primitive superstition. Only 
in the latter case the mixed national faiths have amalgamated 
Dravidian and Mohammedan elements with Aryan, while in 
the Rig Veda there is, as yet, no evidence of external influence. 

It is perhaps owing to outside influence that Brahmanism 
in contradistinction to Vedism has so much demonolatry in 
its composition, but even here the effect of other beliefs on 
Aryan creeds seems to have been exaggerated. For the 
Vedic religion contains in itself the prototype of all the later 
demonolatry. 

An important division of devils, for instance, is that of the 
disease-demons of modern times, many of whom can be traced 
back to Brahmanism. But, if we fit the beliefs of to-day 
into the practices of antiquity, we shall see that this kind 
of demon was really included in the host of divine beings of 
the Rig Veda itself. A very interesting example of this lies 
in the case of a young woman who is said in the Rig Veda 
to have been drawn through a round hole and cured of dis- 
ease. As the hymn stands, it is merely a song in honor of 
the storm-god Indra, to whom credit is given for the cure. 
But the method of cure explains what is otherwise unintelli- 
gible. In all ages in India, just as to-day, crawling through 
a circle is one device to escape the demon of disease,^ for 
every circle is a mystic and hence holy power. This gives 
the cue to the Vedic rite. The young woman was running 
away from the " devil of disease," and was cured by being 
dragged through a round hole. We have, too, at this period 
a host of personified " Diseases," which can be nothing but 
the modern disease-devils. In very rare cases is a disease 
1 Compare Crooke, The Popular Eeligion, i. 142 ; ii. 41. 



L.ofC. 



100 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

attributed to the action of a great god, and only when, so to 
speak, the influence of the great god's power is unavoidable. 
Thus Varuna, a god of sky and water, possibly identical with 
Ouranos, is also worshipped as the god of dropsy, because 
the disease is clearly a water-disease. But in general all 
diseases are simply the outward manifestation of an evil 
spirit. Just as a bruise is the result of a blow, so disease is 
the sign that one has been smitten by a devil. When the 
disease itself is regarded as the body of the disease-spirit, 
this class of demons belongs to that of phenomena. But 
this is rarely the case. The devil causes the disease, but the 
eruption or other sign is not generally the incorporate being 
itself. Some exceptions seem to occur in the case of prayers 
addressed directly to such and such a phenomenon of dis- 
ease, as in deprecation of the yellows as personified jaundice. 
But this class of what has been called symbolic gods is 
merely the result of the usual interchange of cause and 
effect. " Depart, O yellowness," is really to the speaker 
the equivalent of " Depart, O yellow-making evil," and evil 
is synonymous with devil. 

This group of disease-devils is by no means homogeneous. 
Not only do the great gods, like Varuna in the Rig Veda 
and ^iva to-day, occasionally inflict disease, but there are 
also demons who are responsible for disease and yet are 
ghosts. Thus there is a cholera-devil who is the ghost of 
a gentleman who died in the seventeenth century. On the 
other hand, Putana in the epic and ^itala to-day are not 
ghosts ; the latter, the goddess or she-devil of small-pox, is a 
pure abstraction. In ancient Brahmanism there may be found 
an army of these "disease-mothers," whose highest type is 
dark Kali, the spouse of ^iva. Some of these again are 
plainly reduced in circumstances, like the Great Mother of 
Gujarat, who is now a disease-devil and once, like Momba 
Devi of Bombay, was a tutelary local divinity, perhaps 
Mother Earth. But despite the manifoldness of their origin, 
though some are ghosts and some are decayed phenomenal 
deities, there are many which, like the devils bearing the name 



d STUDY OF GODS. 101 

of the disease, can be referred only to fancy and tlie simple 
logic of disease explained above. Among these there are 
interesting types showing the original condition of some of 
the great gods who have been elevated from just such a 
beginning to a higher sphere. One of these present logical 
prototypes of 9i'V'a is the horrible little demon worshipped 
to-day (as he has been worshipped for three thousand years) 
under the name of Bhairava, or in modern form Bhairoba, a 
caricature of ^iva, with whom he has long been identified. 

The first grouping of this general category of gods occurs 
in the Vedic expression " other people," a general term for 
all the powers of darkness, who later are supposed to be 
under the dominion of Kubera, reckoned a Pluto and guar- 
dian of under-ground riches. Long after the first appearance 
of this god as a god, his name is assumed by mortal kings, 
so that in this category also the historical process, as recorded 
in literature, has been the reverse of euhemeristic. 

Although they are not gods, yet the creatures imagined 
by the epic poets deserve a word here as superhuman (or 
inhuman) beings, whose origin has usually been held to be 
due to simple fancy. Such are the one-legged men and men 
with ears long enough to wrap about them. But I think 
that most of these are due to distortion of travellers' tales. 
In South India I chanced one day to be in company with 
a young Frenchman who knew nothing of Hindu literature. 
On seeing the earring-extended ears of a peasant woman 
he exclaimed, " What ears ! Why, she could use them for a 
shawl ! " As to the one-legged men, Colonel Holdich, in his 
Indian Borderland, tells us that in Kafirstan the favorite 
amusement is racing up and down steeps on one leg, " some- 
times with a drop of fifteen feet." Such a tribe would easily 
be described as " one-legged." ^ 

Ghost-Gods. Reference has already been made to a 
class of deities quite different in origin from those discussed 

^ The circumstance that in the epic some of the foreign allies are the 
" stone-throwers " may be illustrated by the fact, also recorded by Colonel 
Holdich, op. cit., that this is the Baluch weapon par excellence. 



102 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

above. These are the ghost-demons and ghost-gods. They 
may be divided into two classes, — deities that are the ghosts 
of certain well-known people, and the vague host of Fathers 
or Manes without special name. In modern times both 
classes are worshipped. In the Vedic period there is some 
doubt whether the first class was recognized at all. But 
there is a possibility of this in the fact that the Bhumiya, 
or local "lord of the field," in modern times is often the 
ghost of a local hero, and that, in the earliest literature, wor- 
ship is given to a " lord of the field." But just as there was 
at a later time a " goddess of the house " differentiated from 
all ancestral spirits, so here the " lord of the field " may 
be only the equivalent of the later " lord of the corn," an 
abstraction and not a ghost. 

But in the earliest hymns the " Fathers " are recognized as 
a distinct group of deities. Their position and powers are 
rather undefined, but the important fact stands out clearly 
that they are never confounded or merged with the gods of 
phenomena. The spirits of the dead either go to heaven and 
sit with Yama, the " first of mortals who died," in the vault 
of the sky, where they enjoy their new life in his company 
under a ''beautiful tree," or, according to the varied beliefs 
reflected through the Vedic period, they stay on earth in vari- 
ous housings, such as plants and the bodies of birds. At a 
later date they become stars, or go to the moon and sun. 
They are generally a nameless, inconspicuous host, and the 
only one revered by name at first is Yama, the mythical first 
mortal. Then some of the great saints get identified with 
constellations; but, generally speaking, the soul of a dead 
man first becomes a Preta, or unhoused ghost, which on 
being properly fed with oblations is "elevated" to the host 
of happy Fathers in the sky. After three generations it loses 
its identity and is named no more at the sacrifice, becoming 
simply "one of the Fathers." 

Yama, whom the ingenious comparative mythologists have 
identified with both the sun and the moon, is regarded as the 
" twin," or male of the primitive pair from whom men come. 



A STUDY OF GODS. 103 

He had a sister Yami, with whom he paired, originally 
identified with Night, though now in popular tradition she is 
the Jumna River, the waters of which on account of her 
incest are still unholy. But Yama is a ghost-god only in the 
view of the tradition that makes him, being mortal, a man. 
He may be merely a poetic image, but if a natural phenome- 
non this same " first to die " would make it most natural to 
regard him as the moon. 

Other ghosts revered as terrible are the Kabandhas of the 
epic, headless trunks of slain heroes, corresponding to the 
modern Dunds. So, too, the Pigacas are a class of devils 
which were originally malevolent ghosts. India to-day is 
full of shrines raised to ghosts of this sort. But it is 
not at all necessary that malevolence or unnatural power 
should be exhibited to ensure divinity. Not a few English- 
men have been worshipped in life, and should have had shrines 
after their death in the estimation of the natives. Among the 
Hindus nothing is more common than the deification of a man, 
dead or alive. To speak here only of the former case, a few 
years ago a poor man in one of the districts of northern India 
fell asleep on the shrine of the local deity. He woke to find 
himself adorned with flowers and worshipped. The villagers 
persisted in accepting him as their local god in bodily form. 
Finding the position an easy one, he remained an avatar till he 
died, when he became a true god whose divinity increased so 
rapidly that he was regarded at last as the original god of the 
shrine. In this case a few successful cures established his cult 
and ousted his predecessor. Again, Hardaur Lala was a worthy 
man who lived in the seventeenth century. He is now the 
god of cholera, of whom mention has been made above. Any 
disease-healer or Ojha, that is. Teacher, if successful in life, 
becomes deified after death. 

Less often is found apotheosis of literary worthies ; but 
Vyasa, the epic author, and his rival Valmiki, are now gods 
in some parts of India, as are the heroes of their poems, who 
have many shrines and thousands of worshippers. Finally, the 
ghosts of "good" women, Satis, are regarded as " newdivini- 



104 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

ties," to cite the expression of the Abb(5 Dubois, who at the 
end of the eighteenth century saw some of these unhappy gods 
in the making.^ 

MajST-Gods. Although men as divinities should logically 
precede ghosts, yet it is significant of the healthy Aryan tone 
reflected in the Rig Veda that, while ghost-gods are acknowl- 
edged, no worship is paid to a living man, though it is true 
that one of the poet-priests asserts his own divinity, but only 
in a hymn that is particularly marked by late features. Never- 
theless, the germ of this disease was already at work, and 
shortly after the first Vedic period man-gods were as much 
feared as sky-gods. The first to win the power was the one 
who still keeps it, the Ojha or wizard. He was the Purohita, 
or domestic chaplain, of a king, and his incantations have been 
handed down in the Atharva or Fire-cult (magic) Veda. In the 
earliest period, indeed, any one might be a wizard ; but long 
before the Vedic period ended the prerogative was safe in the 
hands of the priestly caste. In the Rig Veda itself the real 
" arbiter of battle '" is said to be not the warrior king, nor 
even the great gods, but the priest who controls the armies 
through his magic rites. In the great Indian epic the real 
office of the domestic chaplain is to " slay evil magic " and 
invent evil magic of his own. 

But long before the epic age, the whole caste of priests had 
gradually acquired through the superstitious fears of the kings 
the same power originally got by the Purohita (equivalent to 
cohen). And in fact the ordinary ceremonial of the sacrifice 
was not very different from the witchcraft of the despicable 
Ojha. Through this power over the sacrifice and over the 
gods, the priestly caste arrogated divinity to themselves, and 
before the Vedic age closed proclaimed themselves "gods upon 
earth," a claim legally sanctioned in the native law-books. 
This pretense they have always upheld, and to-day all the dis- 
gusting service of Gosains and Gurus, the pontiffs of modern 

1 Satis (sutrees) are women who allow themselves to be burned to death 
on their husband's pyre, and are hence called satis, " good." Dubois relates 
that their divinity began when the procession to the pyre was formed. 



A STUDY OF GODS. 105 

sectarian bodies, is based on the same notion that the priests 
are actual gods.^ 

Another division of man-gods is that of heroes, spiritual or 
military. Occasionally such men are deified in life, but gen- 
erally it is their ghosts that are worshipped, Buddha, Rama, 
and Krishna are good examples. Rama was so clearly a man 
that even in his own epic he is represented as not knowing 
that he was a god till he was told of it. Both he and Krishna 
were originally local chieftains of Northern India, though to- 
day they are both avatars, that is, "descents" (to earth) of 
Vishnu, the Supreme Deity, A quite modern instance of a 
military leader becoming a god is that of the Mahratta chief- 
tain, (^ivaiji^ whose disciples are to-day, for political purposes, 
urging his cult in the Bombay presidency. The common 
people cannot quite decide whether he was a god or not, as 
they still remember what a demon he was in life. But his 
devilry will, in the ordinary course of things, soon be merged 
in his divinity. A shrine and offerings are enough to estab- 
lish a god? Even professed monotheism, as in the case of the 
Sikhs and modern reformers of this century, is not enough to 
prevent the deification of the high priest of the order, withalj 
before he dies. Chunder Sen too was deified by his followers, 
and long before her death the Queen-empress to many Hindus 
was a great divinity.^ 

1 The jus primce noctis is assumed by some of these pontiffs on the basis of 
this claim. The bride is " purified " by preliminary intercourse with the 
priest. 

2 This may seem to be putting the cart before the horse, but it is not said 
unadvisedly. The Hindu worships what he does not understand, and may 
even take a Mohammedan tomb as a temple ai-.d add his flowers (given to a 
deity) to those placed there in remembrance only. I saw a Hindu peasant do 
this in Lahore, and had him asked why he did it. " They are all great and 
powerful, those in the tombs," was his simple reply. Again, to start a new 
god on a successful career, it is necessary only to build a shrine, and say, " Here 
is a god." The worshippers collect at once. All they need is a sign, and the 
new shrine signifies a god. 

3 It must be remembered that the ascription of godhead to a man is in 
India not quite what it would be among people not believing in metempsy- 
chosis on the one hand, and pantheism on the other. As any very good man 
may become a god at death, the transition in life is only a prolepsis. And the 



106 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

The Abb^ Dubois, who spent his life in India and knew the 
people thoroughly, reports that a respectable Hindu once said 
to him : " My god is the headman among my field-laborers ; 
for as they work under his orders, he can, by using his influ- 
ence, do me much good or evil." ^ Here, applied to man, is 
the same cause of deification, which, as we have seen, under- 
lies the worship of phenomena that are lifeless. On this point 
also the learned Abb^ in the same passage says in regard to 
idols that " idolatry in India has for the object of its worship 
the material substance itself. It is to everything which they 
understand to be useful or hurtful that the Hindus pay direct 
worship." He adds that there is a more refined idolatry, where 
the divinity in the idol, not the idol itself, is worshipped, " but 
that which has for its object the actual substance itself is more 
common." ^ 

In the early literature, both the father and the mother are 
declared to be divinities to their children, but this is little more 
than a phrase, expressing the absolute control which the 
parents had the right of exercising. The marital god, how- 
ever, is a real divinity, though he has only one worshipper, for 
the wife must renounce all other gods if they oppose the hus- 
band-god. A favorite tale in Southern India tells how the 
wife flouted the Guru, or priest-god, and disobeyed all the 
other gods in the pantheon, because the priests told her that 
the great gods had commanded her to do what her husband 
had forbidden. She died in the odor of great sanctity, for 
"a wife's god is her husband," as he has been, both in 
proverb and in Hindu law, for the past twenty-five hun- 
dred years. Absolutely to obey and " worship her husband 
as her only god " is the wife's one religious duty, though 
she may invoke other deities if nob forbidden by her husband- 
god. 

fine old saint of Benares (since dead) answered, when I asked him in 1897, in 
the course of a friendly conversation, how he could adore his own image, " As 
I worship you too, both being portions of God." But, though deified, I was 
not a god. 

1 Dubois, Manners and Customs, ii. p. 556. 

2 Loc. cit. 



A STUDY OF GODS. 107 

Animal-Gods. Whether animals, which make a new cate- 
gory of gods, were worshipped as such by the Vedic Aryans is 
extremely doubtful.^ With the exception of the lion, which 
is not referred to as divine, the animals now most dreaded were 
not then known. The tiger and perhaps the elephant are not 
mentioned; the crocodile is not alluded to till the second 
period of Vedic literature. The wolf and the wild hog were 
not then deified. The divine cow of the later age is at this 
time, and even for centuries thereafter, regarded as better to 
eat than to revere.''^ The only animals, indeed, that appear in 
this period to be hedged about with any sort of divinity are 
snakes and monkeys. But it is centuries after this when we 
find any trace of the mediaeval and modern worship of snakes 
as protective deities and totems. The difference is very well 
marked in Brahmanic worship, where sacrifices and witchcraft 
against snakes come before the recognition of deified snakes. 
Of the latter, the Nagas are not snakes, but idealized serpents 
and dragons. One of them upholds the world. They have 
human faces, and are no more real serpents than Centaurs are 
real horses. It is highly probable that Naga worship was in- 
troduced into Aryan theogony from the aboriginal tribes, as 
the latter revere serpents both as gods and totems. At the 
present day the native peasant worships snakes both as dire 
fiends and as ancestral ghosts. The latter are the house- 
snakes, which are propitiated and looked upon in somewhat 
the double light with which -<Eneas views the serpent on his 

altar : — 

Incertus geniumne loci famulumne parentis 

Esse putet. 

1 That they were sometimes worshipped as spirits of the dead is probable. 
See below. 

2 Down almost to the time of our era beef-eating (at sacrifices) was com- 
mon, as is shown by passages in the national epic. It was even said by some 
of the ancients (though I doubt it) that goghna meant guest (it really means 
" cow-killer ") because the " fatted calf " was killed in his honor. To-day no 
sacrilege is so heinous as the " murder " of a cow. The fact that beef was 
eaten in the epic period has sometimes been noticed without the all- 
important addition that the cows killed to be eaten were at this time killed 
only for sacrifice. 



108 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

Other animals also are credited with being ghosts or wiz- 
ards in beastly form. Totemism has been made responsible 
for many divinities of this sort, but reflection brings prudence 
here also. It is now quite generally admitted that, as Mr. 
Crane and Mr. Bull do not imply a totemistic stage, so many 
clans have descended from men who bore nicknames of 
beasts. An early instance is the Tortoise clan of the Vedic 
age. Unless in fact the descendants are known to treat an 
animal as a totem, that is, refuse to eat it, totemism is not even 
probable. In many cases, even when the animal of the clan 
or family is regarded as sacred, it may be only a subsequent 
enlargement of reverence, due perhaps to a belief that the 
nickname implied a real descent. This is especially the case 
when a non-totemistic people is brought into close connection 
with totem-worshipping tribes. Nothing is more common 
to-day in India than to give a child the nickname of an 
animal. Such a child grows up as Owl or Bear and founds a 
family, which, if the founder becomes distinguished, vaunts 
itself as children of the Owl or Bear. In a totemistic envi- 
ronment few generations are required to make the descendants 
believe that the owl or bear is their true ancestor. The dis- 
tinction between a totem and a fetish must here be kept in 
mind. A totem is a sacred class-symbol or a class-god; a 
fetish is an individual, isolated symbol of divinity, or an indi- 
vidual god. This important difference is often overlooked. 
Even such a careful student as Crooke defines the Devak, or 
marriage-god of the Brahmanized wild tribes, as a totem in 
one place and as a fetish in another.^ 

But there are many animals which are gods in themselves 
to the later age of Brahmanism. The cow, elephant, tiger, 
monkey, eagle, flamingo, crocodile, etc., are divine, but they 
have no trace of totemism in their composition. Only in a 
few cases has there been evolved out of these divine animals 
an abstract class deity, such as Hanumat, the monkey-god, 
Bagh Deo, the tiger-god, or Gane§a, the elephant-god. The 

1 Crooke, The Popular Religion and Folk-Lore of Northern India, ii. pp. 
155, 184. 



A STUDY OF GODS. 109 

boar was a tribal god in Rajputana not long ago ; but, though 
sacred in many parts of the country, he is not generally re- 
garded as a god. Ordinarily each divine animal is divine 
per se, on account of his wisdom, strength, or weirdness, as in 
the case of the elephant, tiger, and monkey. But some are 
divine merely because they are favorites of the great gods, as 
in the case of the peacock and the rat ; though it may be that 
some have become favorites because they were originally 
totems of the wild tribes, and had to be received with respect 
by the Aryans. 

When a fetish is made of part of an animal there is a trans- 
fer from one class of gods to another. The tiger is the em- 
bodiment of strong vitality and is revered as such : his claw, 
when he is dead, is also a mighty talismanic god. In the 
latter case the influence of the divinity is still felt in dead 
phenomena supposed to have volition, and the tiger-claw is 
nothing but a phenomenon-god of inanimate matter, revered 
just as anything is revered which has been intimately asso- 
ciated with divinity. The finger-nail of a saint is the 
European parallel, only in India the divine power has a will 
of its own, even in the paring. 

Occasionally an animal-god is made by a fiat. Thus in the 
museum of Bangalore I found a stone with a long inscription, 
stating that the king's dog had distinguished himself and 
been killed in a fight, and was thereafter to be revered and 
worshipped as a god. A priest and a temple were appointed 
and the new divinity was to be worshipped daily by the 
priest, who was to have all the perquisites of the shrine so 
long as he kept up the cult. So, too, a Bengal tribe, as 
Crooke relates, has within recent years adopted the dog as its 
god, because it was " useful when alive and not very good to 
eat when dead," and the tribe " wished to have a tribal god." 

The usual attitude of the Hindu peasant toward animals is 
that of kindly brotherhood. He recognizes no such barrier 
between beast and man as that created by the intrusion of a 
peculiar soul into human anatomy. To him beasts and men 
in this regard are on a par. Moreover, a beast may become a 



110 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

man after death, as a man may become a beast, since only the 
abnormally virtuous escape a reincarnation in animal form. 
It is, therefore, not at all strange that the Hindu should look 
upon certain animals as possessed by the souls of his ances- 
tors and friends. In the earliest Vedic period, as has been 
shown, human souls were supposed to find refuge in plants 
and animals, and this belief has continued through all ages. 
Animals of extraordinary power are often regarded as re- 
embodied men, or as animated by a god's vitality and super- 
human intelligence. Thus in certain cases an individual 
animal may be Vishnu himself, or a class may be literally 
deified through favor of this god. But in other cases the 
simplest explanation is that the class possessing unusual in- 
telligence, power, or utility, is all divine in itself. The same 
principle is here at work as in the deification of any powerful 
thing. The difference, however, is clear. In the case of the 
razor which the barber worships, the scissors which the tailor 
worships, it is not a spirit in the steel but the steel itself 
which is divine. A thing inanimate, senseless in itself, 
which yet can work good and ill, must be a god. But an 
animal is patently alive just as a man is alive, and his body 
is divine only as being in contact with a divine spirit. The 
difference comes out clearly in the treatment of these divin- 
ities when destroyed. A dead tiger may still prowl about as 
a fiend, and his claw still reflects divinity. But no one pays 
attention to a broken razor. So a triangle and a circle are 
not only divine, but, incredible as it may seem, they are to 
the Hindu, of course only to the uneducated, real divinities, 
to be worshipped as well as feared. But when the figure is 
broken there is no more divinity in its fragments. 

As there are class deities, the abstractions of beasts, in the 
animal world, so there are purely mythical animals, such as 
the griffin, Garuda-bird, and the four elephants that uphold 
the world. These are, of course, neither ghosts nor phe- 
nomena nor animals ; but, being derived from the last two, 
they are gods of the category of fancy, between whom and 
demons or sprites there is no appreciable difference. 



A STUDY OF GODS. Ill 

At the present time, though the doctrine of pantheism is 
formally acknowledged, the native villager never thinks of 
his different gods as being other than separate entities. The 
All-god was by no means the last divinity to be created.^ In 
each category that has been named new gods are even now 
constantly arising. India is in fact a kaleidoscope of deities ; 
a turn of the hand makes ever new combinations out of the 
same elements. These elements, as they have been re- 
viewed,^ are quite distinct. Though we may admit that 
one god may change and pass into a class different to that 
in which he originated, yet it cannot be denied that there 
exist gods of essentially different origin, — gods of phenom- 
ena, gods of pure fancy, gods of ghosts, gods of animals. If 
one chooses, one may say that gods of ghosts are gods of 
fancy, but, so long as one believes in a soul, it is well to 
keep them separate, and in any case the historical difference 
is plain. In the case of gods of fancy, man creates a god 
without reference to human agency ; in the case of ghosts, 
one simply assumes that men continue to live after death 
and act as in life. 

These ghost-gods, animal-gods, man-gods, emotion-gods,^ 
sky-gods, tree-gods, disease-gods, may all be grouped in sub- 
divisions liable to be adjusted more nicely, but there remains 
intact the fundamental distinction between Dyaus, the sky- 

* The (philosophic) nameless All-god was invented about the fifth century 
B. c. About the time of the Christian era the worship of the orthodox chief 
god, Brahman, was amalgamated with that of the two rival sects of Vishnu 
and Qiva, whence arose the conception of the triune god Brahman- Vishnu- 
9iva, Creator-Preserver-Destroyer, as one. 

2 Though this sketch is necessarily brief, I believe that I have included in 
it every class of divinity known in India; not, of course, every individual 
deity, for, as the Hindus say, there are 333,000,003 gods, and only categories 
have been described. 

8 The shameful erotic rites of modern India are held in honor of Passion, 
represented mystically as a Qakti, or " female side " of the All-god. Such an- 
drogynous deities are as old as the Vedas at least, though the " left-hand " cult, 
as it is called, cannot be traced back much farther than two thousand years. 
Worship of the mysterious lies at the root of it, and obvious causes have 
tended, as in Greece, to make the worship of Passion more popular than that 
of Greed or other abstractions. 



112 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

god, and the late Mr. Hardaur Lala, the cholera-god, a 
divinity as well as a ghost ; between god " East-wind " and 
Bagh Deo, the tiger-god. This same distinction holds good 
not only among Aryans of the present day, but also among 
the Aryans of the remotest past, and among the un-Aryan 
wild tribes. It may be added that it obtained also among 
the American Indians, who, when first known, worshipped, 
as separate gods, phenomena, animals, spirits, and ghosts. 
It appears, therefore, to be an unsupported hypothesis that 
all gods have their origin in personified phenomena. But 
equally inadequate seems the hypothesis that all gods origi- 
nated in ghosts or gnomes. Go as far abroad as we will and 
as far back as we can, we still find that, in any one human 
group, disease-gods, gnomes, ghost-gods, and gods of per- 
sonified natural phenomena are independent creations, syn- 
chronous yet distinct. In each category the gods change as 
individuals, but the type remains ; and it seems probable 
that the main categories have existed together, side by side, 
since man first began to worship. 

There is, however, one limitation to this in the case of 
the gods of any one people, the economic conditions of the 
people themselves. For even the gods are subject to envi- 
ronment. The application of this limitation must remain 
for specialists to make in their several departments, and I 
will here merely point out one leading thought which, as it 
seems to me to solve the riddle of the quasi-monotheism of 
the Rig Veda, may prove serviceable elsewhere ; namely, the 
influence of utility on the theopoetic tendency as shown in 
settled and unsettled communities, respectively. 

There hung for many years in the Boston State-house, 
and perhaps it hangs there still, a monster codfish, a 
token of the regard felt by the legislators for the source 
of the chief local industry. It was placed there with respect, 
one might almost say with devotion, and it is not too 
much to hazard that, had our Puritan forefathers been less 
advanced theologically, they would have considered this 



A STUDY OF GODS. 113 

effigy, or at least its original, to be not only regardable but 
worshipful. 

This State-house cod is then a symbol of more than it was 
carved to figure. It is, in fact, emblematic of that utilita- 
rianism which often underlies the adoration both of the 
benevolent and malevolent. This, of course, is by no means 
the only god-creative principle, but it is an important one 
and one generally recognized — recognized even as early as 
the Mahabharata in the words : " Men worship ^iva the de- 
stroyer because they fear him, Vishnu the preserver, because 
they hope from him, but who worships Brahman the creator ? 
His work is done." Not a mere phrase, for in India to-day 
there are thousands of temples to ^i-va and Vishnu, but only 
two to Brahman. 

To linger, however, upon this principle of utilitarianism 
is not my purpose. If we glance at the rich collection of 
divinities in a settled tribe or nation, such as those of Greece 
or India, we shall see that in any given locality the greatest 
usefulness and potency is ascribed to the local god. In a 
low state of savagery or barbarism local gods are universally 
the most important, and even in a high state of civilization 
they still form the undercurrent of popular divinity. Again, 
a great city makes great its local deity even at the cost of 
some anterior great deity, originally worshipped by city and 
country alike. But a villager, too, worships at his village 
shrine alone, and his real god is the god of that shrine. 
When the village is influenced by a wider theosophy the 
temple may belong to some universal god, as is to-day the 
case with that of ^iva, but such a shrine does not faithfully 
represent the loftier conception to the lowly villager. He 
cannot see beyond his ken, and so he is continually reducing 
the great god to the size of his own small conception. More- 
over, although a great god may be duly represented thus, if 
there is at the same time another shrine of a local deity, that 
local god will be or become paramount. Even more must 
this magnitude of the little have been operative before the 
higher conception become possible. 



114 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

The environment whicli I have tacitly assumed is that of a 
settled people. Now let us change the economic conditions 
and ask ourselves what will, and must, have been the gods 
which obtained whenever a primitive people became migra- 
tory. It is evident that a migratory people can have no 
constant local gods. There is no perpetually familiar moun- 
tain or stream whose deity they dread. They may worship 
the sun, but they cannot worship him in a local form ; tliey 
may worship the souls of the departed, but they cannot pay 
especial reverence to the man-god of one shrine. 

What, then, are the gods that a wandering people can 
worship throughout their whole migratory state? Simply 
those gods which they have always with them. And what 
are these? Horace says ccelum non animum, but if we should 
interpret the ecelum very literally, the poet's Greek original 
were nearer the truth, roirov ov rpoirov; man changes his 
abode, his mind remains the same, and the sky-god is not 
changed. The sky-god, not local but always with men, 
they will continue to worship wherever they go. This is not 
true of earth, for earth is not regarded by primitive people as 
one and the same, since a different locality implies a different 
divinity ; there is a local mountain which is a separate god, 
etc. 

Fire, on the other hand, though it often goes out, still 
remains the same magic fire, " the ever new god," as the 
Vedic poets call it ; and it will continue to receive its antique 
worship, especially when, as may have been the case with the 
forefathers of the Romans, it is guarded and not allowed to 
become extinct. 

But there is one more class of gods, the troop of spirits 
of the dead, that remains with migrating people. When 
people settle down they particularize in exact proportion as 
they localize the cult. This man's spirit, they say, resides 
here on the very spot where he lived. Here, then, we wor- 
ship him, and he will protect us here. The result is the 
innumerable shrines which we find raised, for example, in 
India to-day, to the local Birs or man-gods of the places 



A STUDY OF GODS. 115 

wliere tliese heroes used to live. But so long as the chil- 
dren's children roam about, they cannot localize nor particu- 
larize. Each family ghost soon becomes merged in one 
shadowy host of ghosts, travelling with the human tribe, 
worshipped by them in general. Only now and then the 
spirit of some special hero is worshipped by more than his 
own family ; then he becomes a tribal god. 

Now all other classes of gods are virtually enshrined in 
local material. Animal-gods depend on the environment 
for their very existence. Totems are possible only where 
the worshippers are fairly stationary. No one continues to 
revere a tiger or an eagle who has no idea what these animals 
look like, and no one claims descent, if he can help it, from a 
non-entity. Grods of the imagination — genii, devils of vari- 
ous sorts, and nymphs — lose their power in losing their hab- 
itation. As the diyads perish with the removal of their tree, 
so when the site is left, the special devil or fairy, potent in 
its local habitation, becomes vague and eventually perishes 
from the mind. The belief in such beings may be unim- 
paired, but the particular object of the cult is variable, so 
that no one individual demon, genius, or other supernatural 
being can permanently receive worship from the migratory 
people. The same is true of the disease-gods. No one wor- 
ships the cholera or small-pox, as do millions in India to-day, 
who is no longer afraid of it. Diseases change with environ- 
ment, and their malevolent gods are left behind by travellers. 

Thus far I have considered the hypothetical case of any 
migratory nation. Before I take up a concrete instance let 
me point out one more fact. If such a people are once settled 
and afterwards wander for centuries, all traces of what used 
to be their local gods will have vanished. They, too, will hold 
as individual gods only those divinities which they have with 
them always, sky and fire ; while they will believe in troops, 
not individualized, of fairies and ancestral ghosts. If they 
wander in the tropics they will doubtless, even at the start, 
have in addition to these the sun-god, and if they continue 
to wander there they may retain this god. But if they start 



116 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

in the north they are more likely to regard the sun as at most 
a kindly deity or as merely the eye of the sky-god. They 
will not worship him as a fiery, omnipotent, tyrant god till 
they reach the proper environment. So a storm-god may ac- 
company one or more branches of a dividing people while 
they move in a circumscribed area ; but just as soon as one 
branch settles down amid a different environment, this storm- 
god will jdeld his power and name to some new local product. 
Their regard for the moon will also be influenced by their en- 
vironment and be affected by their enjoyment of the night as 
compared with the day, slight in a cold, great in a warm 
clime. In general, then, sky, with perhaps such celestial 
phenomena as sun, moon, and stars (but these latter are 
more dependent on circumstances), and fire, and the manes 
will be the most important, as they will be among the most 
venerable gods that a migratory people can remember; un- 
less, indeed, they bear with them some effigy or memorial of 
another deity which tends to perpetuate artificially what 
would otherwise pass from memory. 

Now let us take in illustration a concrete example. If 
these general statements, a priori as they are, yet seem prob- 
able, what gods should we expect to find as the oldest among 
the Indo-Europeans ? — oldest, that is to say, from the point 
of view which we must perforce take, tlie view afforded by 
linguistic and literary evidence. This oldest evidence rep- 
resents merely a phase of development, but it appears to me 
fully to support the interpretation I have made. What god 
is worshipped under the same name by more than two of the 
Indo-European nations? Only the sky-god, Dyauspitar, 
Zeuspater, Jupiter. Under another name the sky is wor- 
shipped as Varuna, Ouranos. Both in India and in Greece 
this god appears as the most venerable of all gods of phe- 
nomena. But what other gods are worshipped by several 
of these severed nations ? The Fathers, Manes, pitaras^ not 
under a particular name, but as a host, exactly as we should 
have anticipated. And lastly we have the fire-cult practised 
in India, Persia, Greece, and Italy as far back as records go. 



A STUDY OF GODS. 117 

But because the (later) twofold Indo-Iranians lived long 
together, we find also in India's oldest pantheon, as in 
Persia's, a soma-haoma cult and a Mitra-Mithra sun-cult not 
found among other nations. So too we find the same storm- 
god in Slavic and Vedic form, but not elsewhere. 

Here we have, as I am convinced, the true explanation of 
an apparently mysterious fact, a fact that has led observers 
astray and is apt to do so still. I will not recall to criticise 
the older hypothesis of an original monotheism among the 
Indo-Europeans. Such theories were of their time, and 
represented a reasonable stage of scholarly accomplishment in 
the interpretation of religious phenomena. The great Sans- 
krit scholars of an earlier generation were profoundly im- 
pressed by the fact that the sky-god held the highest and 
apparently oldest place; that he was the most venerable 
deity of the Indo-Europeans; and that some of the Yedic 
hymns addressed to him show an almost monotheistic con- 
ception, certainly a much higher conception of godhead than 
attaches to any other god of the Vedic age. Hence they 
naturally argued a primeval monotheism. And it is true 
that the figure of the supreme Zeus and the majestic Varuna 
are such as to suggest this consequence. 

These gods represent, however, as I have shown, not so 
much the most primitive belief as what was oldest in the 
migratory life of their worshippers. For all the Indo-Euro- 
peans were migrating for centuries; that is to say, they 
shifted from place to place, leaving behind what was local, 
carrying forward as great divinities only those which were 
really ubiquitous and were felt to be always identical. 

The sky-god is phj^sically lofty, and does not easily lend 
himself to the hocus-pocus of demonolatry. If we add to 
this the fact that to the Vedic Aryans he was, as has been 
explained, the highest object of their oldest remembered 
worship, we can easily understand why his figure stands out 
so large in the background of the pantheon. We can also 
understand why the figure fades and dwindles as the Aryan 
invaders exchange the tending of herds for agriculture, as 



118 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

they move more and more slowly from Kabul to Delhi (to 
use modern names), and become permanent settlers. For 
with the permanent home rise the local gods, Indra the war- 
god, true image of the monsoon-fury ; ^iva, the combination 
of a Vedic storm-god and a local aboriginal disease-god. 
So with all the gods potent at a later date. Every one is 
local, not one is inherited. Even Agni, the fire-god, in- 
wrought as he is into every sacrifice, and having thus a 
firmer hold than had most of his peers, becomes a mere godling, 
the servant of the great local gods who arise in settled com- 
munities. These latter appear even in the Veda itself, the 
fiLrst insignificant " god of the field," and such jjrototypes of 
the Bhairobas and Vitthalas (modern Vithobas, to give the 
exact form) of to-day, as at Pandharpur in the Deccan. 

The Veda thus presents us with at least three strata of 
divinities: the newest local gods, already potent, and des- 
tined in the end to be most powerful ; the intermediate gods, 
derived from the last protracted local settlements and not 
yet forgotten, Soma and Trita, and perhaps the storm-god 
Parjanya ; and the still older gods which the Aryans revered 
even before their separation, which alone they could have 
preserved (as they had no images) through all changes of 
time and place, sky-god, fire, and ghosts. To these may be 
added the general host of undistinguished fairies and demons 
that, though revered, were regarded as spiritual underlings 
who never came into competition of worship with the great 
gods. The venerable position, then, of the sky-god depends 
on the economic position of the people who worshipped him 
as the one great god they always had with them. He natu- 
rally and inevitably superseded, in the grandeur of his 
history as well as in the loftiness of his physical attributes, 
all the merely local deities which the nation found on its 
route, adopted, and abandoned again, as they successively 
passed into, through, and out of their spheres of divine in- 
fluence. It was only when the Aryans remained perma- 
nently stationary that they could adopt a permanent local 
god. As soon as they did so, this local god, as is always 



A STUDY OF GODS. 119 

the case, began to gain ascendency over the sky-god and over 
Agni, and finally outstripped them both in the race for popu- 
larity, only to be in turn dethroned as the people passed 
asrain into a new environment. But in this and in all subse- 
quent moves, the old gods were no longer obnoxious to the 
chances of fickle piety, for literature now had them com- 
paratively safe. Even with this safeguard, however, Varuna 
becomes before very long a mere god of waters, and Dyaus is 
degraded. 

On one aspect of the case I have scarcely touched. To 
become settled is to be agricultural. Now the settled condition 
of agriculturists raises a great crop of local earthly divinities. 
The peoples of the Rig Veda are in a transition state, repre- 
sented now as tending and raping flocks, now as reaping 
fields ; at one time as still in transit across the Punjab, but 
generally as permanently located. In this shifting of eco- 
nomic conditions there is reason to anticipate exactly what 
we find at this epoch. The figures of the ancient sky-god 
and fire-god are still held in greatest reverence, though al- 
ready decadent in popularity. But what is most important 
is that the older gods are no longer unique in being historical 
gods. For the people are at least so thoroughly settled that 
they regard the local gods also as historical. In other words, 
the latter have already begun to become such inherited 
divinities as Dyaus and Agni, and in less degree Trita and 
Som.a. But at the same time they are local, the reflex of the 
very conditions in which the worshipper lives, vivid person- 
alities, near and real. When this happens, more important 
than the upper god becomes the god that holds life and death 
in his hands as the monsoon comes or, later, as the season of 
disease begins to slay. The god that answers to the environ- 
ment, the local god, first Indra, then ^iva, becomes most 
important. And as (^iva rises, the sky-god falls, for the 
Aryans never again migrated beyond the reach of the local 
conditions into which they had now entered, descending as 
they did from healthy uplands to a land of monsoon and 
fever. 



CHRIST IN INDIA. 

It must often have caused surprise in the mind of the candid 
student of religious history to note with how great regularity 
they that regard Christianity as better than Buddhism regard 
it also as quite uninfluenced by Buddhism, while they who 
believe that the nobler religion of the two is Buddhism, are 
they who believe also that Christianity is but a copy of Bud- 
dhism. That so marked a difference between the results 
obtained by the two parties of investigators is caused by a 
needless confusion of ethical and historical factors may per- 
haps be suspected. But there seems to be no reason why, 
in considering a question purely historical, other elements 
should be allowed to interfere with the full exercise of the 
critical powers. We may, or rather we must, if as histo- 
rians we seek a definitive answer to the historical problem, 
which in itself is quite complex enough to require undivided 
attention, exclude all other aspects (such as the relative 
beauty of the two religions and the human or divine origin 
of one or the other), as introducing subsidiary questions. To 
prove that Buddha's ideal was higher than Christ's adds no 
weight to the contention that the latter was a copy of the 
former ; nor does the argument that Christ was divine prove 
that features of his religion and of Christian legend were not 
borrowed from Buddhism. 

But a second surprise awaits the historical student who 
ventures upon this field. At the time of Christ there were, 
among others, two great religions in India, Buddhism and 
Krishnaism. Now while one set of critics maintain that 
Christianity is borrowed from Buddhism and ignore Krish- 
naism altogether, another set claim that Krishnaism was the 



CHRIST IN INDIA. 121 

model, and that the Gospels are based on the teachings of 
this form of Hinduism rather than on those of Buddhism. 

This division of the putative sources of Christianity leads 
further to the discovery that, whereas the life-events and mir- 
acles of Christ are supposed to be copied from those of Bud- 
dha, the sayings supposed to be copied are in the main those 
of Krishna ; since the records of the events in Krishna's life, 
though comparable with those of Christ, are not looked upon 
as antecedent, and the sayings of Buddha comparable with 
those of Christ are but slightly similar. As Krishnaism is not 
represented in literature till a period subsequent to Buddha, 
it will be well to discuss the double problem in the chrono- 
logical order of its parts, the inter-relation of Christianity 
first with Buddhism and then with Krishnaism. 

Of what sort, then, is the evidence in the case of the former 
relation — direct or indirect, based on historical facts or on 
literary analogy; again, how much of it is valuable, how 
much worthless, has it, in fact, been properly sifted ? 

Now in answering these queries a not uncommon order of 
procedure is to begin by giving a mass of literary parallels 
and to end with a statement of the historical conditions. 
For example, the Buddhistic parable of the prodigal son is 
cited as a parallel to that in the New Testament, and after- 
wards it is stated that the medium of communication, by 
means of which in general Buddhistic parables were trans- 
planted to Syrian soil, was probably a Buddhistic gospel cur- 
rent in Syria in Christ's time ; for in the first century A. d. 
there was constant communication between India and Syria. 

But it is perhaps more conducive to a clear understanding 
of the problem if we endeavor first of all to understand the 
conditions under which in general such communications may 
have taken place, and then to apply our knowledge to the 
special cases. The cogency of the argument in the case just 
adduced, for example, is somewhat affected by the two facts 
that, so far as we know, there was no such Buddhistic gospel 
in Syria, and that the Buddhist parable cannot be traced 
back of 200-300 A. d. It is, of course, possible that there 



122 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

was such a gospel, and it is possible also that a Buddhistic 
story appearing in literature in the third century after our era 
existed four centuries in secret without being mentioned in 
the voluminous accounts of Buddha's life, and was then trans- 
planted to Syria and published for the first time in a Bud- 
dhistic gospel, belief in the existence of which depends wholly 
on its being regarded as the indispensable means of commu- 
nicating this parable to Christ. But it is advisable rather 
to know first the facts than thus to begin by playing with 
fancies. 

The historical facts, however, are not so complete as could 
be desired for the solution of so interesting a problem. But, 
though they too leave a large margin for the play of fancy, 
they are sufficient to answer one of the most important points 
in the taking of evidence. There is a large amount of early 
literature concerning the Christian religion, and in it there 
is no indication that Christianity was regarded as reflect- 
ing Buddhism, even at a time when Buddha's doctrines were 
certainly known. On the contrary, Buddha was regarded as 
such an arch-heretic that converts were required on renounc- 
ing Manichseism to anathematize both Zoroaster and Buddha. 

But in this matter there will be found both undue depre- 
ciation and exaggeration of historical data in the evidence 
submitted. On the one hand they are made to prove less, 
on the other more, than may reasonably be extracted from 
them. 

In the third century before Christ, the Indian king A§oka 
sent missionaries to the West, who, as he says, converted the 
Greeks, and among those to whom he sent was Ptolemy 
Philadelphus and Antiochus II., the latter ruling over the 
Bactrian Greeks, the former, who also sent an embassy to 
India, being king of Egypt. The Hindus were accustomed 
to give the name of Greeks to the Bactrian Greeks, and usu- 
ally mentioned them as neighbors of the people living in Kan- 
dahar on the Northwest frontier.^ Agoka claims, however, 
that he sent missionaries not only to Antiochus, who reigned 

1 See on this point the evidence collected in my Great Epic of India, p. 393 £E. 



CHRIST IN INDIA. 123 

over these Greeks, but also to certain friends of Antiochus, 
the king of Epirus, and others. There is no outside evidence 
that such missionaries ever arrived, or, if they did, that they 
ever had any influence ; and scholars like M. Senart, who 
have studied the subject most carefully, incline to the opinion 
that A§oka had simply heard of these kings through his friend 
Antiochus and had dispatched missionaries to them, when he 
boasted of the conversion of the Western world (within a 
year after the missionaries were sent). On the other hand, / 
we know that in Bactria there were Buddhist missionaries as 
early as the second century b. c. 

That the West was converted to Buddhism or even influ- 
enced by Buddhistic missionaries in the third century before 
our era, is not probable in the face of the fact that such influ- 
ence is not to be traced in the literature, and that Buddha's 
name is quite unknown at that period ; for Buddha himself 
was as central a figure in his religion as was that of Christ in 
his. The next tangible fact that presents itself is that in the 
reign of Augustus a king Porus of India sent an embassy to 
Rome, and the ambassador, who burned himself at Athens 
under a name that means " ascetic-teacher," may have been a 
Buddhist. At any rate, he was an Indian, and his presence 
in Rome in the first century shows that intercommunication 
of some sort between India and the West was not rare. The 
same conclusion must be drawn from the known general facts 
that there was political communication for centuries before 
the Christian era, and that a large number of traders passed 
between Egypt and India at this time. 

Even before the Palmyrene trade with India, there were 
two routes which formed a means of communication, a trade- 
route by sea from Alexandria, and a land-route from Babylon 
to the Punjab. In the first century of our era, as we learn 
from Dio, Hindus had not only visited Alexandria, but were 
settled there as residents of the city. It is, however, easy 
to exaggerate the extent of the intellectual intercourse. The 
" Greek letter " borne by the embassy to Augustus about 
20 B. c. purported to come from Hindus, but it may have 



124 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

been indited by Greek traders in Gujarat. The few Hindus 
in Alexandria must have been uneducated traders, or we 
should not have Strabo's testimony to the fact that it was 
very difficult for him to find any one to give reliable infor- 
mation about India. Strabo also tells us that only a few 
ignorant Greek traders had got to the Ganges, and states 
that only this one embassy to Augustus had ever been 
sent to the West. When, therefore, the advocates of Bud- 
dhistic influence claim that two hundred years before the 
Christian era Buddhist missionaries had been all through 
the West and had established churches there, we may well 
inquire on what they rely for a statement so extraordinary. 
Such tales must be discounted as fully as Philostratus' 
account of ApoUonius' journey in the first century of our 
era, during which the latter is said to have found a Punjab 
king who, having been educated as a Greek, was on a certain 
occasion " reading the Heraclidse ; " while even the Punjab 
villagers spoke Greek. Up to the present, no trace of any 
early Buddhistic worship has been found in the West. The 
only known monument, a reputed Gnostic tomb in Sjrracuse, 
is only supposed to have been Buddhistic — two suppositions 
in regard to a monument of comparatively late date. 

In short, while Eastern civilization had already impinged 
upon the West, and while there is therefore a possibility 
that the religions of the East were not unknown in Syria, 
such meagre reports as we have before the end of the 
first century make any special knowledge of Buddhism there 
at that time highly improbable. Within two centuries of 
this time, however, Hindu beliefs were studied, as we learn 
from Eusebius, who says that Pantsenus taught in India 
before teaching in Egypt in the second century. There was, 
as we know, direct transfer of philosophy in the second 
century in the writings of Bardesanes, copied in the third 
century by Porphyry. That Neo-platonism at an earlier date 
may have been indirectly influenced by Hinduism as ex- 
ploited by Pythagoras, is at least possible. That there were 
mystics in Syria at the time of the apostles, as well as other 



CHRIST IN INDIA. 125 

(immoral) doctrinaires hateful to the angel of the Lord, may 
also be granted in view of the Simonians and Nicolaitans 
mentioned in the Acts and Revelations. 

But those who claim that these facts are sufficient to 
prove that Christ borrowed his religion exaggerate the impor- 
tance of such slight acquaintance with the East as can be 
shown to have existed. There is, so far as objective histor- 
ical data go, no warrant for the idea that Christ's religion 
-was moulded on any other. To show that it was moulded 
on another, and that that other was Buddhism, requires 
some proof much more tangible than any facts furnished 
by external history. 

We are then thrown back upon the literary evidence, 
where the proof is to a great extent subjective, though we 
have a right to demand that it should be of the strongest 
possible character. This evidence consists of parallels in 
the traditions of the two religions. 'X u^ 

Of the fifty odd parallels established between Buddhism 
and Christianit}^, only five are considered to be cogent, 
that is, as necessarily implying a loan from Buddhism. This 
distinction of values in the quality of the evidence was 
not left to the adverse critic to demonstrate, but, to the credit 
of Professor Seydel, who first gave scientific form to the 
theory, it was conscientiously pointed out when the hypothe- 
sis was originally presented (in 1882 and 1884). Unhappily, 
however, later writers have often laid equal weight upon 
all cases reckoned as parallels, being content apparently to 
make their heap as large as possible. But it is scarcely 
necessary to prove that the fact that Tibetan Buddhism, which 
arose late in our era, recognized a virgin mother long after 
Catholic missionaries had been in Tibet (whereas the pre- 
Christian Buddhistic church denied that Buddha's mother 
was a virgin at all) is not to be put into the same category 
with the fact that long before Christianity Buddhists believed 
in the miraculous birth of Buddha. 

The original segregation of material into parallels which 
(a) prove nothing, (b) seem to show that Christianity has 



126 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

borrowed, and {e) prove that Christianity has borrowed from 
Buddhism, makes it possible in a sketch of this kind to 
confine the attention chiefly to the third group, which, if it 
seems to offer good evidence, may be strengthened by the 
others. 

Two of the five, which may for convenience be called 
the Cogent Parallels, are parallels between Buddhistic narra- 
tive and passages not found in the Synoptic Gospels, but 
in John. This point, however, may be overlooked at present, 
though I shall take up these cases first. 

The first Cogent Parallel, then, is as follows : In the first 
chapter of John it is related that Christ saw Nathaniel under 
a fig-tree; in Buddhistic legend, Gotama Buddha becomes 
huddlia, "enlightened," while sitting under the fig-tree 
which is now called the Bo-tree, or tree of enlightenment. 
The question here, as in the case of the other Cogent Paral- 
lels, is whether Nathaniel's fig-tree must necessarily have 
been borrowed from Buddha's fig-tree, under which the 
latter sat safely till he found enlightenment. It is added that 
both Buddha and Christ were calling their first disciples 
when the fig-tree is mentioned, but this statement is driven 
across the limit of accuracy. 

If a fig-tree were a rarity in Hebrew tradition, it might 
be granted that there was something exotic about the scene 
itself. But, far from being unique in biblical allusion, 
the fig-tree is typical. It would be equally cogent to point 
to the fact that Buddha sat safely under the fig-tree 
and to the statement that "Judah and Israel dwelt safely 
every man under his fig-tree," and thence conclude that 
1 Kings, iv. 25 was copied from Buddhism. But if we 
consider that the category of Cogent Parallels was established 
as a group of parallels which imply not only borrowing, but 
borrowing from Buddhism, on the ground that the Christian 
side is inconceivable without such borrowing, we must, I 
think, refuse to admit the fig-tree into this category, and can 
only wonder that it has been put there by any historian. 

The next case is found in the ninth chapter of John. 



CHRIST IN INDIA. 127 

Here the disciples ask Christ concerning a blind man; 
Who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born 
blind? If Christ had been under Buddhistic influence, he 
would surely have said, This man only; for the Karma doc- 
trine of Buddhism teaches that a man's condition in this life 
is the result of his mental or physical acts in a former life. 
Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his 
parents. It is to be noticed, moreover, that this is not 
a parallel scene, for no parallel event is recorded in the 
life of Buddha, and it is not till two or three centuries after 
Christ that we find even an approximation to the biblical 
narrative, in the late Buddhistic account of a blind man cured 
by a physician, who gives the usual Hindu explanation that 
sin caused the blindness. The only parallel in the Gospel 
account is one of thought, for it is claimed that such an idea 
as is here presented in the disciples' question implies a doc- 
trine that is specially Buddhistic (namely, sin working out 
in disease in a new birth), because it is foreign to Jewish 
ways of thinking. But the latter point may be admitted 
without any necessity of accepting the explanation, since 
an Egyptian source is quite as probable as a loan from 
India. Historically there is certainly nothing to compel the 
acceptance of a Buddhistic source, and therefore the parallel 
cannot be regarded as really cogent.^ 

The third Cogent Parallel is found in the fact that both 
Christ and Buddha existed in heaven before they were born 
on earth. But it is difficult to see how in Christ's case any 
other view could have obtained. Even if it were necessary 
to admit that the idea of the divinity having pre-existence 

1 The idea of sin in one life resulting in malformation or some other mis- 
fortune in the next is an addition to the underlying belief in metempsychosis. 
The latter belief appears to have obtained among Christ's contemporaries in 
Syria, judging from the matter-of-course way in which John is asked (John i.) 
whether he is Elijah, and Christ himself seems to have taught that John was 
Elijah (Matthew xi. and xvii.), at least " in spirit and power," as was declared 
by the angel, /col avrhs irposeAeuereTot ivdytriov avTov iv wevfiari Kal Swdfin 
HAiou (Luke i. 17). Origen's objections to such an interpretation show that 
it was at least considered possible. 



128 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

(before being born on earth) must necessarily have been bor- 
rowed, there would be no historical obligation to recognize 
the idea as Buddhistic, — which is, of course, the only reason 
for claiming that it is a Cogent Parallel, — since the same 
conception is not only found in Zoroastrianism, where also 
the prophet is believed to have had a pre-existence, but is in 
fact common, and necessarily so, to all the many religions 
holding that a divinity may be born as man. 

The next Cogent Parallel is united with the following 
second-class (6) parallel. When Buddha was a babe, the old 
Yogin Asita flew down from his retreat in the Himalaya 
Mountains and prophesied concerning the child's future great- 
ness, lamenting that he himself could not live to see the ful- 
filment of the prophecy. This is put as a parallel to Simeon's 
prophecy concerning Christ. It is not regarded as a Cogent 
Parallel, although it may be remarked that thus far it is the 
only striking one. The date of this legend is, however, prob- 
ably anterior to our era, since it is well known in the first 
century A. D. It is necessary to mention it merely because 
unscientific writers ascribe it to a much earlier date and insist 
that it must have been the prototype of the Simeon story. But 
Max Miiller very properly says that it is one of those parallels 
which are without any historical significance ; and since even 
Seydel does not regard it as cogent, we may pass it by as 
unimportant. 

But with this is linked a Cogent Parallel ; namely, the pre- 
sentation in the temple. The Buddhistic version is that when 
Buddha was carried to the temple of the gods, the idols fell 
down before him. First, however, it must be noticed that 
this linking of the two stories over-emphasizes the parallel in 
the former, for Asita is not represented as being in the temple 
at all ; and, secondly, the Buddhistic presentation scene, far 
from being primitive, is not found till the second or third 
century after Christ, although it is just such a story as we 
should expect to find in the early tradition, where, however, it 
is entirely wanting. For the Asita story is found in the Buddha 
Carita of the first century, but the presentation story not till 



CHRIST IN INDIA. 129 

the time of the Lalita Yistara, which is at least a century or 
two later, and, as you will see, it may have been influenced 
by Christian tradition. 

Four of the Cogent Parallels and one second-class parallel 
have now been examined, and thus far the examination has 
yielded the fig-tree and the pre-existence in heaven as the 
only Cogent Parallels dating from before our era, the blind 
man and the presentation in the temple as post-Christian 
legends, and the Asita story of middle date, though probably 
pre-Christian. 

To the only remaining Cogent Parallel I add also another 
which has been much discussed, — the miraculous birth. 
This has been made more striking by ascribing virginity to 
Buddha's mother, although, as I have said, the early texts, 
far from ascribing virginity to her, expressly state that she 
was not a virgin. The introduction of this parallel under the 
caption Buddha's Immaculate Conception, Buddha's Virgin 
Mother, belongs, however, only to the popular and somewhat 
vulgar class of writers to whom allusion has already been 
made ; and I cite it here merely as a typical example of the 
style in which grave historical subjects are treated by cer- 
tain debaters, whose object does not seem to be to arrive at 
the truth, but only to convince others. But such advocates 
are not historians and may be ignored as unnecessary. 

Freed from fictitious embellishments, there is still a certain 
parallel to the story of Christ's birth in the story of Buddha's 
birth. But it is not a very remarkable parallel when we con- 
sider that miraculous birth was a necessary concomitant of 
spiritual greatness, and that it is by no means necessary to 
seek the origin of the Christian account in India, when, if a 
source must be found for it, the Iranian parallel is much closer. 
According to early Buddhistic legend the mother was not a 
virgin, but a chaste wife, into whom miraculously entered in 
the shape of a white elephant the future Buddha, who subse- 
quently came out of her right side. The Iranian legend, on 
the other hand, is as follows : " The Glory enters the house 
where the future Zaratusht's (Zoroaster's) mother herself is 



130 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

about to be born. Uniting itself with her presence it abides 
in her until she reaches the age of fifteen, when she brings 
forth her own first-born, the prophet of Iran," etc.i With this 
parallel at hand can the Buddhistic elephant be regarded as 
an important parallel ? The historian of the Orient knows 
that all religious teachers are regarded as divine and as such 
have miraculous births; in India, even from the time of 
Vasishtha, the Vedic saint. We need not cite the sculp- 
tured testimony to the antiquity of this legend in outline. 
Undoubtedly Buddha's miraculous birth was believed in as 
early as the third century b. c. and perhaps earlier. But is 
this enough to show that it was the model from which was 
copied the story of the virgin mother of Christ ? I doubt 
whether any close student of Oriental history would be con- 
vinced by such evidence. It is at any rate not regarded as 
Cogent by Seydel himself ; nor, so far as I know, by any one 
else whose opinion is of importance. 

The last Cogent Parallel has perhaps been relied upon 
more than any other to show that Buddhistic legends are 
incorporated into Christian records. It is the fast preceding 
the temptation. In the New Testament we are told that 
Christ fasted forty days and was then tempted of the devil to 
turn stones into bread, to cast himself from the pinnacle of 
the temple, to take the glory of the kingdoms of earth in 
exchange for worshipping the devil; and when he had 
refused, angels came and ministered unto him. In the 
legend of Buddha, Death, who plays the devil's part, tempts 
Buddha (as the latter is on the point of becoming perfect and 
thus about to escape Death ever after) to yield to sensual 
pleasures. But, failing in this purpose, he attacks Buddha 
with a storm, which, however, does not disturb Buddha's 
serenity, and finally attacks him with an army. Buddha, 
however, still sits unmoved under the Bo-tree, and Death 
retires discomfited. Buddha continues to sit under the 
Bo-tree till he has become really enlightened, and then after 

1 Jackson, Zoroaster, pp. 24 ff. lb. page 28, attention is called to a Zoroas- 
trian parallel to Herod's slaughter of the innocents. 



CHRIST IN INDIA. 131 

fasting for twenty-eight days, or, according to a later accoTint, 
forty-nine days, begins his ministry. 

It will be observed that, though this parallel contains a 
fast and temptation, the details are different. The induce- 
ments offered are dissimilar, and the order of temptation and 
fast are reversed. Nevertheless, it may be admitted that we 
have here rather a close parallel, though it may be added that 
the whole Buddhistic legend is not primitive. To cite the 
statement of Rhys Davids : ^ " When it is first incidentally 
referred to we find only the bare mention of a suggestion to 
the Blessed One that now ... his work is done and that the 
time has arrived for him to pass away -without attempting to 
proclaim to others the glad tidings of the Noble Way." But 
this is really of little importance for our purpose, since the 
story of Death making the suggestion (which is the germ of 
the temptation) is as early as the Book of the Great Decease, 
that is centuries older than Christ's birth. On the other 
hand, it must be remembered that this is one of the five 
Cogent Parallels which are represented as cogent because 
they contain elements which are unintelligible if they are 
Christian, while if they are originally Buddhistic they are 
perfectly natural. How far this trait is strained in the pre- 
ceding examples has been shown. In this example we may 
well ask why a forty days' fast must be derived from Bud- 
dha's fast ? Moses fasted forty days, and the type is familiar 
to the Jews, who also had the devil. 

From these comparisons it becomes clear that the historical 
student's first duty is to make a sharp division between those 
parallels which can and those which cannot be referred to a 
time earlier than the birth of Christ. Thus in the Lotus, 
which cannot be referred to a date earlier than 200 A. d., is 
found the parable of the prodigal ; and in the same work, 
the curing of a blind man by a physician, who says that the 
blindness is the result of his former sins. In the Lalita Vis- 
tara, which, as I have said, belongs to the second or third 
century of our era, occurs the temple-scene, and here also the 

1 Buddhism, p. 104. 



132 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

scene where Buddha shows his precocity by exhibiting 
knowledge of all the kinds of alphabets, including the Chin- 
ese. Still more insecure are parallels based on Burmese, 
Tibetan, and Chinese traditions dating from the sixth to the 
thirteenth century, although they have all been used to sup- 
port the structure of parallels. Some of the second-class 
parallels, those which may show borrowing, have already 
been given. A complete list may be seen in Seydel's Evan- 
gelium, p. 299 ff. Here the not very striking facts that Buddha 
and Christ both preached on mountains, and that verses occur 
in Buddhistic narration and in the prose of Luke's Gospel, are 
given as cases of probably Christian borrowing; while it is 
frankly admitted that " Die frappantesten Analogien aber 
gehoren dem Lalita Vistara an " (p. 300), that work which 
cannot be traced back of 200 A. d., though Seydel opines, of 
course, that it implies older material. 

Among the third-class (a) parallels, as explained above, are 
found the Herod story (which, however, has a still closer paral- 
lel in Zarathustrian legend than is found in the Buddhistic 
story of Bimbisara) ; the preference shown by Christ and Bud- 
dha for certain disciples ; the fact that both Christ and Buddha 
are given genealogies. In this group, to the great credit of the 
author, is put the miraculous conception, which less scholarly 
writers regard as one of the most important parallels. 

On the other hand, the following " parallel " is enrolled 
even by Seydel himself. Buddha sent out his disciples and 
ordered them not to go in pairs, " in strange contrast to Luke 
X. 1 (Christ sent them two and two), but this contrast is 
eliminated by" — what? the fact that "later" the Buddhis- 
tic missionaries went forth in pairs ! ^ 

Parallels in the sayings of both teachers are illustrated by 
the following : Jesus said. He that findeth his life shall lose it. 
Buddha is not reported as having said this, but in Buddhistic 
literature is found. The King of Death does not see one who 
looks upon this world as (unstable like) a bubble or sunbeam. 
Another striking parallel : Jesus said, Be not anxious for 
1 Die Buddha-Legende, p. 66. 



CHRIST m INDIA. 133 

the morrow, sufficient unto the day ; a Buddhistic verse says, 
The fool thinks, I will live here winter and summer, but does 
not think of the end of life. Still another : " Jesus' Judge 
not, and the Take the beam from thine own eye is paralleled 
by, Let one not have another's faults in his eye." It is almost 
incredible that such parallels should be cited, but the last 
case is more than usually venturesome, for on turning to the 
original it may be seen that what is translated "have in his 
eye " is so translated merely to make a parallel with " take 
the beam from thine own eye," whereas the original text, 
Dhammapada 50, avekkheyya, has merely " observe," or look 
at, of which hab' man im Aug^ would be a correct enough 
translation, but for the fact that the author makes a special 
point of finding a parallel between phrases (Seydel's Evan- 
gelium, p. 21 2) .1 One more of these extraordinary parallels 
will suffice. Jesus said. Blessed are the poor, and. Sell all 
that thou hast, while in the Buddhist Dhammapada occurs 
a verse, " The greedy do not get to heaven, the generous wise 
man becomes happy above." 

The fact that " parallels " are cited as historically connected 
on the strength of such resemblance as this shows how 
strained may become the whole argument. Yet many of 
the parallels are no closer or more convincing. The case 
might well be put on the other side : Why, if Christ copies 
Buddha, is there no real resemblance in his sayings to those 
of his presumed copy? In regard to parallel miracles we 
have, to sum up, two sorts, — those of universal origin, as we 
may call them, and those that are found only in Christianity 
and Buddhism. Now the only miracles certainly found in 
pre-Christian Buddhism are of the former sort, while the 
latter sort is found only in such dateless material as the 
Jatakas, or in material which, like the Lotus and Lalita, dates 
from after the Christian era. Two very striking Jataka 
parallels are given by Max Miiller.^ One of them is the story 

1 Another instance of this same method of making a fictitious resemblance 
is given in Max Miiller's essay on Coincidences, reprinted in Last Essays, 
p. 282. 2 loc. cit., p. 284 ff. 



134 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

of a disciple walking upon the water; the other, that of 
Buddha making one loaf feed more than five hundred people. 
It is quite impossible to say on the historical evidence 
whether these stories were borrowed by or from Christianity. 
All we know is that they are Jataka stories, and there is no 
proof that these special Jatakas were pre-Christian; which, 
however, does not prove that they were not.^ 

As is clear from the last examples, one factor in all these 
parallels is of the greatest importance. We are accustomed 
in the West to deal with documents the date of which 
can usually be determined within a few years or decades, 
and it is not often that as with Homer we have to content 
ourselves with referring to literary works as probably belong- 
ing to any time within two or three centuries, — works of 
what we may call the period of nebulous history. Now the 
first thing that every student of Indian literature has to learn 
is that most of the works composed in India before the fourth 
century of our era have merely nebulous dates. There is 
not a single pre-Christian Sanskrit book concerning which 
we can say that the work as it has come down to us 
was certainly composed at any time within two hundred 
years. And, moreover, the Buddhistic records with which 
we are especially concerned are not only of very uncertain 
date, but they are also of very mixed origin, being for the 
most part works not composed by any one author, but col- 
lections of legends loosely connected and enlarged by late 
accretions of every sort, as is admitted even by those who 
exploit such works as historical material. We may think, 
and it is quite probable we are right in thinking, that such 
books as the Lotus of the True Law and the Lalita Vistara 
contain a substratum of legend much older than the date 

1 The Jakatas as a group are of quite uncertain date. The story of some 
has been found in stone wrought in pre-Christian times, but even the corre- 
sponding Jatakas as we have them (in literary form) may be much later, and 
as for the mass of these works, there is no proof at all that in their present 
form they antedate our era. A very few can be shown to be essentially (not 
necessarily in their present shape) older than this ; but the striking parallels 
adduced above are not found in Jatakas {jatakas, Birth-tales) of this class. 



CHRIST IN INDIA. 135 

to which we must in general assign the works themselves. 
It may even be shown that the Lalita Vistara, an epical 
history of Buddha without inner connection, reverts in 
origin to an older and simpler account; but this merely 
shows that the book has received accretions, and surely, on 
the basis of such an opinion or such a reconstruction, we 
are not entitled to operate with the presumed original 
as if it furnished the date of the completed conglomerate 
which now is called Lalita Vistara. 

Of the Sanskrit works thus essential to the theory of 
a borrowed Christianity, the Lotus is referred vaguely to 
the third century, or at earliest to about 200 a. d., while 
there is no evidence whatever that the Lalita Vistara in 
its present shape antedates the third century. It is quite 
justifiable to suppose that the original of the Lotus may 
be some centuries earlier; but it is quite as unhistorical 
to refer legends of our present Lotus to a pre-Christian era 
as it would be to put the history of Herodotus into the 
eighth century because some of his stories may have had 
a more antique form. One of the oldest of these works is 
the Buddha Carita of AQvaghosha, which has the distinction 
of being assigned to a definite author, whose date at earliest 
is the close of the first century of our era; but even this 
date is a matter of conjecture, not of such certainty as to 
fix the time of the work definitively. For we are forced 
to depend upon statements in regard to it which are them- 
selves made centuries after the assumed date. Now it is in 
relying absolutely upon such evidence that the advocates 
of the borrowing theory are constantly making historical 
blunders. If we remove from the parallels admitted to 
be close those which unquestionably belong to pre-Christian 
sources, we find very little left on which to base the 
argument that Christ drew his religion from Buddhistic 
sources. 

More weight has been laid upon the Lalita Vistara and 
more ingenuity has been expended to prove that it contains 
ante-Christian tales than in the case of any other late 



136 INDIA OLD AND NEW, 

Buddhistic work, because it has so many interesting parallels. 
In allowing to this poetic hodge-podge of tales drawn from 
any source an antiquity as respectable as I have, I wish 
to show the greatest liberality consistent with historical 
possibilities. The actual latitude in age may be inferred 
from the following words of Rhys Davids, a writer who 
claims as great an antiquity as is possible, or even greater, 
for the simpler Pali tradition, but says : " The Lalita Vistara, 
a poem of unknown date and authorship, but probably com- 
posed in Nepal, and by some Buddhist poet who lived some 
time between six hundred and a thousand years — i. e. 500 
A, D., — after the birth of the Buddha." ^ 

This does not, of course, imply that outside influences 
cannot have helped in building up Christian tradition. It 
still leaves it, for example, an open question whether the 
story of the temptation or of the man born blind may not 
have been later additions (as already remarked, the latter 
is not in the Synoptic Gospels), and it is possible that the 
idea of Karma may have been received from India. That is 
neither here nor there. The point is that the evidence be- 
fore us does not indicate that the chief features of the 
Gospel story were drawn from India, although India had the 
story of the temptation at least a century or two earlier than 
our era. 

Strange to say, there is still another group of authorities 
which later writers especially have drawn upon without 
discrimination, this time from the literature on the other 
side. For not only is the borrowing theory based to a great 
extent on Sanskrit works composed long after the Christian 
era, but it is based in equal measure on Christian legends 
which are also late and quite as untrustworthy reflectors of 

1 Added to this are the words I here italicize : 

"As evidence ofivhat early Buddhism actually was, it is of about the same value 
as some mediceval poem would be of the real facts of the Gospel history." Hibbert 
Lectures, p. 197. And again : " We have no external evidence which would 
justify the assignment of the Lalita Vistara to any date earlier than the 
uncertain one [the sixth century of the Christian era] of its Tibetan ver- 
sion," loc. cit. p. 200. 



CHRIST IN INDIA. 137 

earlier belief ; namely, the pseudepigrapha of the New Testa- 
ment, many of which may have been composed under influ- 
ences foreign to the New Testament itself. 

And here the impartial historian has to observe that those 
who argue on the Christian side have also failed to be 
quite historical in regard to some of the Buddhistic monu- 
ments, the age of which they depreciate too much. For 
while, as already pointed out, the epical accounts of Buddha's 
life are of very uncertain date, there is a mass of documents 
which there is no reason to doubt are much older than our 
era, and some of the parallels are found among them. Espe- 
cially important is the evidence of the sculptured gateways 
and other monuments, such as A§oka's edicts, whereon are 
carved, or actually referred to, the stories of the temptation 
and miraculous birth. The former are not, as Christian 
apologists have sometimes asserted, later than our era, but 
they belong pretty certainly to the second century; those 
at Sanchi are probably as old as 150 b. c. or older. 

Nor can another item be passed over. The upholders of 
the view that Christianity has necessarily been borrowed 
from Buddhism have taken a position the weakness of which 
has not been exposed with the rigor that their opponents 
might have exercised. For, as has been shown, not a few 
of these parallels are referred as if necessarily to Buddhism 
simply because the theorist has ignored other possible origi- 
nals. The base of the explanation is in many cases completely 
demolished by the simple fact that, even admitting a loan 
as probable, there are other sources which are quite as 
likely as Buddhism to have given rise to the parallel case. 
But the Christian apologist has at times neglected to point 
out the truth that his own traditions are often not unique, 
and thus by ignoring the possibility of any borrowing what- 
ever he has played directly into the hands of his opponent, 
whose strongest point is the tacit assumption that if there 
was any borrowing it must have come from Buddhism, 

There is one great likeness in the work of Christ and 
Buddha. Both gave a new definition to the word " religion." 



138 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

It was assumed by each teacher that men wished to be 
religious. But each teacher made it his life-work to incul- 
cate the new idea that religion was not an outward obser- 
vance but an inner state. In teaching that religion was not 
sacrifice and ceremonial, but purity and charity, Buddha and 
Christ in turn had to inveigh against the priests that taught 
a religion devoid of both essential elements. The same con- 
ditions gave rise to the same result. Granting that a stereo- 
typed formality had formed itself independently in Judea, it 
was inevitable that the reaction against it should emphasize 
the true nature of religion. There is then in this reaction as 
personified in Christ merely a logical parallel to the reaction 
as personified in Buddha. If the relations were one of his- 
torical connection, we should expect to find that Christ util- 
ized the teachings of his predecessor. But both the teaching 
of Christ and the history of missionary effort in the East are 
stumbling-blocks that the borrowing theory with all its inge- 
nuity has been unable to cross successfully. We must look 
at each of these points in turn. 

Is it probable that Christ copied his religion from one that 
in every metaphysical particular was opposed to what he him- 
self taught ? Buddha believed neither in God nor soul, but 
he believed, and every form of his church believed, in the 
transmigration of character, as an entity, into a new body, — 
a theory which has nothing to do with heredity, with which 
it has recently been compared. This was an ingenious but 
wholly unscientific compromise between the popular belief of 
the day in metempsychosis and Buddha's own denial of a 
psyche. If, then, Buddlia's doctrine in these fundamentals, 
atheism, apsychism, character-transfer, affected Christ's teach- 
ing, why is there no trace of any one of these essentials in 
Christ's teaching? It has always seemed to me that the 
theory of a plagiarized Christianity finds itself here in a 
dilemma from which it is impossible to escape. For if Christ 
simply copied, why is there no trace of the copy ? If, on the 
other hand, he was imbued with a Buddhism current and well 
known in his day, — as think the pleaders for plagiarism, — 



CHRIST IN INDIA. 139 

but was antagonistic to it, his attitude in regard to these 
points must have been as decided as it was in regard to other 
views held by the many and denounced by him, and we 
should hear at least something said in regard to the moot 
points of soul and God, But not even the disputatious apostles 
show any sign of their religion having been a reaction against 
an atheistic and soulless faith, although it is one of the cardi- 
nal tenets of the borrowing theory that Christ must have 
imbibed Buddliistic ideas current in Syria in his day. The 
only escape from this dilemma is in assuming that Christ 
copied a modified form of Buddhism, and this escape is 
essayed. But here there is difficulty in pointing to any faith 
which reflects Buddhism. As the Essenes were mystics, they 
have been selected, however, and another development of the 
theory is that the medium of communication was not a 
Buddhistic gospel current in Syria, but the Essenes. The 
double claim is here made that Christ was an Essene and 
that the Essenes were Buddhists. 

This explanation of Christ's religion is unsatisfactory from 
an historical point of view because it involves two unknown 
factors. Even if it were certain that the Essenes were 
Buddhists, there would still be as much doubt in regard to 
Christ being an Essene as there would be in regard to his 
being a Pythagorean or Neo-platonist or Zoroastrian. To 
this uncertain factor is added the mere conjecture, which is 
without proof of any kind, that the Essenes were Buddhists. 
The evidence, such as it is, is decidedly against either of the 
two suggested relationships. First, as regards Christ's con- 
nection with the Essenes, the fact that Christ does not inveigh 
against this body as he does against the other two sects of his 
day, the Pharisees and Sadducees, is counterbalanced by the 
antithesis between his doctrines and that of the Essenes, who 
were " superlative Pharisees," the strictest Sabbatarians, and 
sun-worshippers. Celibacy, community of goods, and a very 
strict moral law were characteristic of both religions. But 
Christ's attitude toward the outer world and all Pharisaical 
tendencies does not accord at all with an Essene's views on 



140 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

these points. On the other hand, the Essenes were so strictly- 
Jewish that they condemned to death not only him who 
blasphemed against God, but also him who blasphemed 
against Moses, while the element of sun-worship, which is 
not Buddhistic, but is Persian, would seem to show that they 
were affected by a religion nearer home than any in India. 
Finally, all that they taught in regard to a previous existence 
and the soul's recovery is easily accounted for on the sup- 
position that they were more or less Hellenized Jews ; while 
their stern insistence on the two points of soul and personal 
God are in direct antagonism to the chief tenets of Buddhism, 
They appear to have been a set of religious mongrels, Jewish 
in origin, but crossed with various foreign strains, among 
which, however, there is no certain trace of a Buddhistic 
element. The double hypothesis of Christ being an Essene, 
and the Essenes being Buddhists, thus resolves itself into 
a desperate guess to explain in Christ's religion factors 
which another guess suggests against all probability may be 
Buddhistic. 

The history of the early Christian church in India is a side 
of this whole question that is often ignored by the up- 
holders of the hypothesis of borrowing. But what we know 
in this regard is so important that to slur the facts or to 
omit them from consideration is to belie history. These 
facts are briefly as follows, though it must be said also that 
the acceptance of foreign ideas has from the very earliest 
phases of their religions been characteristic of the Hindus. 
Far from being unchanging, as is often asserted, all the Hin- 
dus, both Brahmans and Buddhists, were mentally most 
progressive and receptive. They have always taken new 
gods from outside their own pale, and have always been 
prone to assimilate the thoughts and traditions of those with 
whom they have come in contact, especially in religious mat- 
ters, as is shown by their absorption of un- Aryan elements in 
early times and in what I shall have to say immediately in 
regard to Krishnaism. 

As to the missionaries sent to India : The legend that 



CHRIST IN INDIA. 141 

Thomas went to India and labored in the realm of Gun- 
doferus could be regarded as a legend only so long as Gonda- 
phares, to give his real name, was a myth. But in the last 
century we have learned that exactly at the time when 
Thomas is reported to have been in India, and on the route 
which he would most naturally take, a king by the name of 
Gondaphares ruled over all the Parthian and western Punjab 
region. We know also that a great colony of Jews emi- 
grated from Palestine — ten thousand in all — and settled on 
the Malabar coast in a. d. 68 ; that Pantaenus was expressly 
sent to teach the Brahmans in India, and found a Christian 
church already established there in 190 A. d. ; that in the sixth 
century there was in South India a Christian church, which 
according to its own tradition had been founded in the first 
century ; that Christian influence was perhaps strong enough 
in the Northwest to leave Christian scenes depicted in the 
Peshawar and Kandahar sculptures of the fifth century ; ^ 
that in the seventh centuiy missionaries were in middle 
India; and that about the same century they were sent to 
China, where, indeed, as in Tibet, it is probable that they 
had already been located for some time. 

In short, from the first to the seventh century of our era 
there was strong Christian influence at work in India, and 
the time of missionary activity in India is coincident with the 
time of the most striking parallels, not of the universal sort 
but of the minute and particular kind, which is really the 
only kind that has significance, parallels which reach their 
perfection in the modern Llamaistic church of Tibet, — a 
form of Buddhism which has about all the paraphernalia of 

1 This is the opinion of scholars whose judgment in regard to these sculp- 
tures is respected. Such works as I have seen show Buddhistic and Hindu 
scenes treated under Grseco-Persian influence, which I think will be the event- 
ual verdict in regard to all Buddhistic sculpture, none of which is free of 
Greek influence (as all of it post-dates historically the presence of Greeks in 
India). Some writers lay a good deal of stress on the Christian origin of the 
Kandahar sculptures, for which reason I include the item with a " perhaps," 
though I think the influence is not quite without doubt. The other factors are 
unquestioned. 



142 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

the Roman Catholic sect, a pontiff, sacred pictures, a virgin 
madonna, and many other remarkable parallels, carefully to 
be distinguished, however, from those religious factors which 
this church shares with other forms of Buddhism, such as 
nuns, monasteries, the rosary, confession, and other primitive 
elements. These have been referred to so often that the 
detailed list may be omitted here, as it can be found in every 
popular presentation of the subject. But it must be said that 
in giving the whole list there has not always been a careful 
distinction between what is antique and new in the Llama- 
istic service. When we eliminate the antique, which we can 
do by grouping the elements found in primitive Buddhism, 
we find a certain number of minute resemblances which are 
found only in that church of Buddha which arose in the 
seventh century A. d. ; that is, after the Nestorian missionaries 
were in full activity in Northern India. As these were the 
historical conditions, it is, to say the least, extraordinary that 
any one should imagine that the Roman Church got its ritual 
from the Llama form of Buddhism ; yet the unhistorical par- 
allelist (he really deserves a special name in distinction from 
historian) unhesitatingly jumps to this conclusion. When 
dissected carefully, his amalgam of parallels of all ages shows 
only one Catholic feature that may reasonably be supposed 
to have been borrowed from the Buddhistic paraphernalia; 
namely, the rosary. This seems to have been a loan because 
its name is unintelligible ; whereas the Hindu form is a com- 
pound word that means prayer-wreath, but at the same time, 
owing to the word " prayer," japa^ being almost or quite 
identical with the word for rose, it may be translated rose- 
wreath. This prayer-wreath under an older name was bor- 
rowed by Buddhism itself from ^ivaism, and is certainly 
older than our era. 

We may say then with every regard for historical accuracy 
that the presence of parallels to Christian tradition in such 
Buddhistic works as cannot be referred back of the first 
century A. D., is not necessarily explained by borrowing on 
the part of Christianity. For this would be almost as much 



CHRIST IN INDIA. 143 

of an anachronism as to see in the parallel passages of Ver- 
gil and Theocritus a proof that Theocritus copied Vergil. 
Where the parallels make borrowing seem probable, as in the 
case of the miracles and legends not found in other religions 
and striking enough to suggest a loan, the historical evidence 
is strongly in favor of Christianity having been not the copyist 
but the originator. 

The possibility that the Buddhists have borrowed from 
Christian tradition has been recognized by the more scholarly 
advocates of the opposed theory, and Seydel, for example, 
meets it with this rejoinder: The Lalita Vistara and other 
works of this class are, indeed, so late that they may have 
been exposed to Christian influence ; but that these works 
did not borrow from a Christian source at all, is proved by 
the fact that they did not borrow more Christian legends. 
It is interesting to observe that this is the best argument that 
can be brought up. Reverting to our classical illustration, 
we might just as well say: It is clear that Vergil did not 
take phrases from Theocritus, for Theocritus has many 
phrases which are not found in Vergil at all. 

To conclude this half of our study, we may, I think, as 
open-minded historical students, safely assert that the Chris- 
tian religion, according to all the evidence, was not plagia- 
rized but original. At the same time we must admit that 
there is historical possibility in the view that the Christian 
narrative may have been affected by Buddhistic tales, but we 
must just as decidedly maintain that no cogent proof of this 
view has yet been furnished. 

It seems to me that this is the only scientific opinion pos- 
sible, and I urge it particularly as against Max Miiller's 
demand (loc. cit. p. 290) that we should not " shilly-shally " 
with a not proven, for " what is wanted is a straightforward 
English verdict, Yes or No," that is, to the question as a 
whole. Miiller himself, who was quite as well able as any 
one else to give an opinion on the subject, was very careful 
to avoid saying what he thought. He left the verdict to 
others and refusing to say what he believed denounced as 



144 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

un-English any hesitation in saying yes or no. But a cate- 
gorical reply to many scientific and historical questions is 
the most unscientific answer that can be given; for when 
the fact asserted is not proven, Not Proven is the only 
honest answer. Personally I incline to believe that the 
early tradition of the Christian Church may have received 
additions from outside sources, and I think it is quite possi- 
ble that Buddhistic stories and ideas may have had some 
influence, such as was shown later in taking Buddha into 
the Christian list of saints. But no such influence on the 
earliest form of Christianity has been made very probable, 
and what is more important (and Miiller reiterates this very 
properly) there is nothing in any of these parallels that fun- 
damentally affects Christianity. At this point every student 
finds himself as to the New Testament in much the same 
position as he occupies when he compares geology and Genesis. 
If he has so little faith in the Bible as to fear every new dis- 
covery of science or to think that Christianity's truth trembles 
in the balance of Buddhistic legend, he should close his books 
and in solitude demand of himself whether he really under- 
stands the difference between the essential and the adventi- 
tious in his belief, and whether he ought to weight the wings 
of Faith with unnecessary burdens. 

But let us, on the other hand, remember this also, that 
whereas it used to require courage to be liberal it now requires 
courage to be conservative, to brave the undeserved reproach 
of narrow-mindedness, to lag on the path of presumptive pro- 
gress and walk with slow-paced Doubt rather than run ahead 
with nimble Imagination. All of you, I know, wish to be 
fair, and some of you may think that it is narrow-minded not 
to " accept results " and admit all that is claimed against the 
historical Christianity taught in the Sunday-school. Well 
and good ; I too try to be as liberal as facts permit. But let 
us not mistake assertions for facts. And as to liberality, you 
need not worry or be disturbed at the liberal spirit of those 
whose contention is that Buddhism has been the model of 
Christianity. As I have said on another occasion, it is not 



CHRIST IN INDIA. 145 

what a man believes that makes him liberal, but the attitude 
he assumes toward that which he does not believe. You may 
believe in nothing and be most illiberal. And so you may 
accept all new ideas and fancy you are thereby broad-minded, 
yet be as wanting in wisdom as if you rejected all that was 
new. In a word, both in one's general attitude and in one's 
acceptance or rejection of ideas and statements, to be loose- 
minded is not to be liberal-minded. 

But not to preach to preachers (and I ought to ask pardon 
anyway for leaving history for other matters), though I give 
this general warning as one useful in considering many 
historical problems, I cannot admit that it has any especial 
application here except for those who feel that the Not 
Proven leaves a margin of doubt which troubles them. I say 
feel, because the subjective element undoubtedly plays a part in 
the decision, try as hard as we may to make it objective only. 
For them I repeat that the vital truth of Christianity is not 
affected by anything discovered in Buddhism. For others, 
who, like myself, would not be disturbed by any real dis- 
coveries in history, it is enough to repeat that the historical 
evidence in this particular case makes it at least probable 
that Christian missionaries were not idle all the time they 
were in India from the first to the seventh century, and that 
Buddhism has borrowed somewhat from Christianity ; while 
it is doubtful whether Christianity has borrowed anything 
from Buddhism. Of the Cogent Parallels, one only seems to 
me indicative of a possible loan, that of the temptation, but 
this is only possible, and perhaps not very probable. Even if 
it were shown to have been borrowed, however, the fact would 
certainly detract nothing from Christian truth. 

The reception and adaptation of Christian legends by the 
rival religion which dominated India as Buddhism began to 
decline form a very instructive parallel (though one carefully 
shunned by the parallelist) to the way in which Christianity was 
(or at least may have been) utilized in exploiting Buddhism. 
This rival religion is Krishnaism, a form of Vishnuism. The 

10 



146 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

influence of Christianity upon it is shown clearly in its later 
stages and may with good reason be suspected in its earlier 
form. In discussing now this form of Hindu religion as 
it resembles Christianity, I shall first have to give some 
historical data in regard to it. 

The worship of Krishna as a popular divinity, correspond- 
ing to Herakles in the Greek account of Megasthenes, is 
probably as old as the fourth century b. c. In the second 
century it appears to have still been no more than the cult 
of a hero-god, who may have been regarded as an avatar 
of Vishnu by his special adorers, the inhabitants of the 
district about Delhi and Muttra. But he was still a hero 
rather than a god, as Megasthenes says in identifying the 
valley-god with Herakles and the mountain-god (^iva with 
Dionysos. This is Krishna's character in many parts of 
the epic, always divine, though this means little in India; 
but often he is clearly only a hero-divinity, and he is once, 
when assuming to be Supreme God, sharply rebuked for 
his pretensions, though of course he triumphs over his 
revilers. Elsewhere, however, in the same epic, Krishna 
is unquestioned God. But whatever he is, godling, man- 
god, or God, he reveals himself at first only in human form. 

The great epic of India is a huge compilation which, 
while its story has doubtless swallowed up material that 
was centuries older, belongs in its present condition to the 
century or two immediately preceding and following our 
era. Some of it may be several centuries later than our 
era, but by the fifth century A. d. it was about its present 
size and presumably had about its present content. 

Now this epic has had inserted into it a little poem which in 
origin is evidently a late Upanishad. It is nevertheless one 
of the earliest of the poems set in the frame of the epic. 
But it is by no means a poem in its original form. Both 
the beginning and the end are later additions and the poem 
has been retouched, as were most other parts of the epic. 

The epic itself as a whole lies across our era, part of it 
being older, part of it later than the time of Christ, and 



CHRIST IN INDIA. 147 

as it is difficult to be accurate in regard to the date of 
the whole, it is still more difficult, although we may recog- 
nize early and late parts of interpolations, to decide whether 
these parts belong to a pre-Christian era or not. For exam- 
ple, the theory of the special Grace of God, which saves 
the sinner, and is the correlate to the latter's "loving faith," 
is a comparatively late doctrine of the Upanishads, appearing 
first in those of the third chronological order. Only here 
is to be found the technical word for this idea, prasdda^ 
but rarely withal and still interchanging with the earlier 
notion of graciousness, or literally calmness, not of God 
toward a sinner but of a man's own mind.^ So the epic 
poem to which I have referred uses this word at first only 
in the old sense, " one attains calmness," or graciousness 
of mind ; but in the last chapter, which is clearly an addition, 
we find it in the later meaning of Grace of God (just as 
it is used in the sectarian Upanishads), not once but half 
a dozen times in this one chapter, as, for example, in the 
following : 

He that is faithful to me, whatsoever be the acts he does, obtains 

immortality through my grace. 
Having thy thoughts fastened on me, through my grace thou 

shalt pass over all difiiculties. 
The Lord of all beings abides in one's own heart. Go to him as 

thy refuge ; through his grace thou shalt obtain immortality. 

1 The general idea of the grace of a god as a special favor is of course as 
old as the gods who could show favors. In the Rig Veda the divinity Speech, 
Vac {vac), says that she elects whom she loves, and makes him mighty. 
In this has been seen the germ of the Logos doctrine, and as this study 
takes up so many sides of possible relations between Christian and Oriental 
doctrines, I may add here a word on this point. Without denying that Gnosti- 
cism may have influenced the Logos doctrine, I yet think that the part played 
by speech ("Word," as it is often freely rendered) in Indian theosophy has 
been greatly exaggerated throughout. Vac, Speech, at no time represents 
Logos. She is simply a deified abstraction, like Sarasvati, Eloquence. In 
the Vedic hymn just alluded to, moreover, Vac is nothing more than the 
personified power of the priest's utterance ; and when the priest sings, " I, 
Speech, make powerful whom I love," he expresses simply the oft-repeated idea 
that the prayer of the priest, his eloquence with the gods, makes the gods 



148 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

He who speaks is the divine man Krishna, who in this 
poem, called the Lord's Recitation, Bhagavad Gita {gltd) is 
imparting to his disciple the truths of a religion which 
in the epic is recognized as essentially new. For the old 
religion was the worship of the Herakles-like popular 
divinity, but in the epic Krishna is represented as having 
but recently made claim to be the avatar of the Supreme 
God, a claim not yet wholly recognized by other epic charac- 
ters and one which Krishna himself naively says is admitted 
only by a few persons. It is therefore of peculiar interest to 
find that there is a close parallel between the words of this 
Krishna and those of Christ's disciples. The question natur- 
ally arises whether the Gita, which contains these parallels, 
has been affected by Christian influences or has itself affected 
the New Testament. 

When this question was first broached, it was answered 
with some lack of critical discrimination. Those who held 
that the Gita was original referred the New Testament 
parallels to this " ancient Upanishad ; " while their oppo- 
nents neglected the data of history. I will speak first of 
the latter, who exaggerated the modernity of Krishnaism. 

For both the antecedents of the religion were overlooked 
and that which is universal in the parallelism was ignored. 
Thus it was said that Krishnaism in this form presented 
the first instance in Hindu religion of hhakti, loving-devotion 
or faith like aydirr], and consequently this idea was thought 
to be drawn from Christianity. Now it is true that the 
word hhakti scarcely occurs before the epic and does not 
occur at all in the Krishnaite sense before the epic, for 
though it is found in one late Upanishad, yet there it is 
not love but devotion to a fearful God before whom "one 
comes in fear," just as in the older Upanishads. But, 
on the other hand, although other Hindu religions had 
nothing corresponding to afyaTrr}, yet this notion had long 

well-disposed to the priest's employer (the king), and the moral is the usual 
one that the king must treat well a priest whose speech is so productive of 
good (or bad, according as the priest will). 



CHRIST IN INDIA. 149 

been a feature of Buddhism, and the loving devotion to 
the great master who was a real personality was simply- 
transferred to the sectarian god, whose rise in dignity was 
contemporary with the first political rebuff experienced by 
Buddhism. As in other cases, the attributes of Buddha, 
the teaching of Buddha, notably in a stricter " non-injury " 
doctrine, and perhaps the events of Buddha's life, were trans- 
ferred to the popular divinity, though formal Buddhism is 
argumentatively rejected in the epic itself. Further, there 
was a lack of perspective in these parallels. Thus, such a 
phrase as " I am the letter A " as compared with " I am 
Alpha and Omega" was cited as illustrating a loan from 
Christianity, although in one of the oldest Upanishads, 
centuries before Christ, we read,^ " Brahma is the A " and 
"A is the whole of speech (or the word), and the word is 
truth, and truth is the spirit." 

Then, again, many of the parallels belong rather to the 
class of universal similitudes such as we find in Buddhism 
and Christianity ; while some are too slight to deserve notice, 
such as, " Thou, God, alone knowest thyself," as compared 
with " No man hath seen God at any time ; " or " Save from 
the sea of death," as compared with " Who shall save from the 
body of death ? " 

On these vague resemblances, however interesting they may 
be, too much historical weight has often been laid even in 
modern essays, as when the idea of adultery in the heart. 
Matt. V. 28, is compared with G. 3, 6 : He is called a hypo- 
crite who, while subduing the organs of sense, sits remember- 
ing in his mind the objects of sense ; or when the command 
to abjure sin and lust, and the statement that the mind of the 
flesh is enmity against God, Rom. vi. 12 and viii. 7, are grouped 
together to make a parallel to G. 3, 34 : Let one not become 
subject to lust and hate, for they are enemies of the soul. 
Some of these " parallels " have not even a remote connection. 
For example, What shall I do to inherit eternal life, Luke x. 25 
(this do and thou shalt live), has actually been " paralleled " 
1 The references are given in my Keligions of India, p. 226. 



150 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

with G. 4, 16 (I will tell thee the act by knowing which thou 
shalt be freed from evil), although the answer of the former 
passage is not even suggested in the latter. Such a " parallel " 
is in truth merely an historical impertinence. 

Moreover, we must not forget how remarkably similar may 
be by mere chance the phraseology of different religions. This 
point too may be illustrated here, lest it be overlooked in 
making an estimate of the parallels between Krishnaism and 
Christianity. For this purpose I choose a few verses of the 
Rig Veda and compare with them Old Testament verses that 
cannot be suspected of having been either their source or 
their copy : 

B. V. His own works witness to his might and wisdom, 

Who fashioned firm supports for earth and heaven, 
Who set on high the firmament uplifted, 

And fixed the stars, and spread out earth's expanses. — 
vii. 86, 1. 

0. T. He that made the earth by his power, he hath established 
the world by his wisdom and hath stretched out the 
heavens by his discretion. — Is. xliv. 24. 

B,. V. He mingled with the clouds his cooling breezes. 
He gave the cow her milk, the horse his vigor, 
He in the heart put wisdom, in clouds the lightning. — 
V. 85, 2. 

0. T. Hast thou given the horse strength . . . given under- 
standing to the heart. — Job xxxix. 19 ; xxxviii. 36. 

R. Y. Do not punish us according to our sin, whether we sinned 
consciously like gamblers, or unconsciously. . . . Whatso- 
ever evil we have committed . . . forgive us. — v. 85, 
5-7; vii. 88, 6. 

0. T. Eemember not against us former iniquities. . . . Cleanse 
thou me from secret faults. — Ps. Ixxix. 8; xix. 13. 

B. y. He knows the track of the birds flying in the air, he 
knows the ships upon the sea. — i. 25, 7. 

0. T. The way of an eagle in the air . . . of a ship in the midst 
of the sea. — Prov. xxx. 18. 



CHRIST IN INDIA. 151 

Here, then, we find Isaiah, Job, David, and Solomon using 
almost the same language with that of the Vedic poets ; an 
object lesson on the danger of drawing rash conclusions from 
parallel phrases. So in story, both in the Old Testament and 
the Rig Veda, the divinity is lauded as having made the sun 
stand still in the heavens, changing night to day, and as 
having overwhelmed his enemies in a flood and given passage 
through the flood to his worshippers ; as may be seen by con- 
sulting the parallels cited in Kaegi's Rig Veda, pp. 63 ff., 
where also are collected not only the citations just given, but 
many more like them.^ The Gita itself has a few parallels 
with the Old Testament : As a man puts off old garments and 
takes others that are new, so leaving the old bodies the 
(unchanging) spirit enters others that are new, G. 2, 22 ; All 
of them shall wax old like a garment ; as a vesture shalt thou 
change them, Ps, cii. 26 ; Lay aside all works upon me, G. 8, 
30 ; Cast thy burden upon the Lord, Ps. Iv. 22. 

But even granting the force of the warning I have just 
given, we may yet doubt whether chance can be made respon- 
sible for all the parallels between the Gita and the New 
Testament, especially when the important fact is noticed that 
these parallels are not drawn, as in the case of the Rig Veda 
and Old Testament, or in that of the whole Buddhistic liter- 
ature as compared with all the early Christian literature, from 
a voluminous body of writings, but that they are crowded 
together into one short Hindu poem, and, for the more 
part, into one gospel. 

For, in exploiting all possible Gita parallels with the New 
Testament, Lorinser, who wrote on this subject thirty years 
ago, cited every verse and phrase containing the remotest 
resemblance. But if we exclude such unconvincing examples 
as make a large part of Lorinser's collection, as when Love 
your enemies is paralleled by a recommendation to be " indiffer- 

1 On the other hand, Solomon's Judgment in the Tibetan version, instanced 
by Miiller in his Coincidences, is more probably a loan, as it is unknown in 
Buddhist literature till centuries after the country was entered by Christian 
missionaries. 



152 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

ent to friend and foe/' Matt. v. 44, G, 6, 9 ; or as when Pray 
in the closet is paralleled by a recommendation that one should 
stand in a deserted place when practising Yoga concentration, 
Matt. vi. 6, G. 6, 10 ; or as when the mere word " rain " in the 
expression, Rain on the just and unjust, is made the base of a 
comparison with the words of the Supreme Being, who says : I 
glow (as the sun), I hold back and let out the rain, Matt. v. 
45, G. 9, 19 ; if we exclude these, and take up the really 
striking parallels, we shall find that with the exception of 
Be of good cheer, thy sins are forgiven, as compared with 
Come to me as thy refuge, I will release thee from all thy sins ; 
grieve not (in Matt. ix. 2, and G. 18, 66, respectively), which 
are rather similar, almost all the close parallels to the Gita 
are found not in the Synoptic Gospels but in John. Those 
from the Synoptic Gospels are all of the class just referred to, 
or are made by combination, as when All ye that labor and 
are heavy laden, Matt. xi. 28, is joined to xi. 5, The poor have 
the gospel preached to them, and then again to John xviii. 
37, Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice, to make as 
a whole a parallel to " four kinds of men " who in the Gita 7, 
16, are said to worship Krishna ; namely, the oppressed, the one 
desiring wisdom, the needy, and the wise. I give a list of 
these passages, however, without further remark on their 
appositeness, that it may be seen just how the theory stands in 
its exaggerated as well as real strength, though even in such 
a list I cannot bring myself to admit absurdities and so must 
refuse to include. Let one elevate himself through himself, 
Gita 6, 5, as paralleled in any way with Let one deny himself, 
Matt. xvi. 24.1 ^g "parallels" in the Synoptic Gospels are 
cited : 

Matt. vii. 14, Narrow is the gate, and few there be that find 
it ; G. 7, 3, Among thousands of men (scarcely) one strives 
for perfection ; even of those striving to be perfect (scarcely) 
one knows me truly ; and G. 9, 11, They know me not. 

1 The Sanskrit word is uddharet, and Lorinser suggests that it may mean 
" withdraw ; " but it means simply " raise," as is clear from the antithetic 
context, " let one not lower himself," avasddayet. 



CHRIST IN INDIA. 153 

Closer is John, i. 10, The world knew him not. Matt. xxiv. 
35, Heaven and earth pass away, but my words shall not pass 
away ; G. 8, 20, He who is not destroyed when all beings are 
destroyed; ib. 9, 2 (in the secret purifying knowledge), 
imperishable, and easy to perform (with which is also com- 
pared. My burden is light, Matt. xi. 30). Matt. xxii. 37, 
With all thy heart and all thy mind; G. 9, 13, Knowing 
me as the imperishable source of beings, they love me with- 
out having the mind on anything else. Matt. xvi. 16, 
Peter's confession of faith, is compared with that of Krishna's 
friend, who in G. 10, 12, says that Krishna is Brahman, the 
highest goal, and unborn primeval God and Lord. Matt. 
xvii. 2, and Mark ix. 3, the transfiguration, are compared 
with G. 11, 12, where Krishna reveals himself in the glory of 
a thousand suns. After the apocalypse Jesus said. Be not 
afraid (xvii. 7), and Krishna "reassured him frightened" 
(12, 50). The description in Matt. xi. 19, and Luke v. 33, 
(came eating and drinking) is compared with the definition 
of a true Yogin as one who neither eats too much nor not at 
all, G. 6, 16 (Buddhistic). The Beatitudes, Matt. v. 3-10, 
are compared with G. 12, 13-19, which has the refrain. He 
who loves me (or is devoted to me) is dear to me, with a list 
of descriptive adjectives applied to the word " he " and imply- 
ing condition : If without hate, kindly, merciful, unselfish, with- 
out egoism, alike in weal and woe, patient, contented, always 
restrained, of subdued nature, firm in resolution, and having 
thought and mind fixed on me, — he who is devoted to me is 
dear to me ; he (refrain) whom the world fears not, who is 
not disturbed by joy, anger, or fear, who is unconcerned, 
pure, assiduous, indifferent, who desires not the fruit of his 
action, who neither joys nor hates nor sorrows nor desires, 
who is unaffected by pleasure or pain (refrain) ; he who is 
equal-minded toward foe and friend, honor and dishonor, 
cold, heat, pleasure, and pain, devoid of affections, the same 
in blame or praise, silent, content with anything, homeless, 
firm-minded, — such an one devoted to me is dear to me. In 
Matt. xvi. 26, Lose his soul (as a phrase) is compared with 



154 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

G. 13, 28, He that recognizes the Lord (in truth) does not 
destroy his soul, but he attains the highest course. "With 
Mark xvi. 16, He that disbelieveth shall be condemned, is 
compared G. 4, 40, He that is ignorant, he that has no faith, 
he of doubting soul, is destroyed. The widow's mite, Mark 
xii. 42, Luke xxi, 2, is compared with G. 9, 26, I accept 
what is offered to me with loving devotion, be it but a leaf, 
a flower, a fruit, or water. Christ had compassion on the 
multitude, Mark viii. 2 ; Krishna, G. 10, 11, through com- 
jpassion destroys the darkness of ignorance with the light of 
the lamp of knowledge ; where the parallel is closer with 
2 Cor. iv. 6, God said light shall shine out of darkness, 
who shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge 
of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, as in the next 
verse of the Gita (or again in 4, 38), the knowledge is a 
purification, jpavitram, as it is said in Titus ii, 14, That he 
might purify unto himself a people. In Luke xiv. 33, Who- 
soever renounceth not all his belongings cannot be my disci- 
ple, iracTL T0i9 eavTov v'irdp')(^ov(nv is represented as the exact 
equivalent of the phrase in G. 4, 21, He sins not who, having 
renounced all his belongings, is of restrained mind and 
senses (tyahtasarvaparigrahali)} In Luke xiv. 26, If any 
man hateth not, etc. ; in G. 13, 9, Attachment to son, wife, 
home and such objects (must be abandoned). 

In Eev. xxi. 23-24, And (the celestial city) has no need 
of the sun, neither of the moon to shine upon it ; for the 
glory of God did lighten it ; in G. 15, 6, 12 (In my imperish- 
able home), there shines no sun, nor moon, nor fire. ... It is 
my glory that is in the sun, that illumines the world, the 
moon, and fire. But this notion, however parallel, is older 
than the Gita and is found in the Upanishads. So also with 
the phrase in Rom. xii. 1, Present your bodies a living sac- 
rifice, and G. 4, 26, Sacrifice the senses in the fire of self- 
control, for this is an ancient Upanishad image. 

From the Epistles the closest parallel is found in 1 Cor. 

1 Lorinser and others compare also atyartham in G. 7, 17, translating "more 
than goods," but the word means " exceedingly." 



CHRIST IN INDIA. 155 

X. 31, Whether ye eat or drink or whatsoever ye do, do all to 
the glory of God, as compared with G. 9, 27, Whatsoever 
thou doest, whatsoever thou eatest, whatsoever thou offerest 
in sacrifice, whatsoever thou givest, do all as if it were to 
me. The expression in James ii. 8, Fulfil the royal law, has 
also been compared with G. 9, 2, where Krishna's " secret 
wisdom " is called the royal secret and royal wisdom, rdj'a- 
vidyd. So Eph. iv. 18, Darkened in their understanding . . . 
because of ignorance, and G. 5, 15, Their understanding is 
covered by reason of ignorance ; which is antithetic to G. 5, 
16, The understanding which like a sun illuminates the 
highest (compare The light of the knowledge of the glory of 
God, 2 Cor. iv. 6). 

There is certainly enough parallelism in these passages to 
suggest the notion that the phrases are not similar by acci- 
dent, yet if it were for these alone the theory of borrowing 
could be answered by the objections already made to a too 
facile explanation of such cases. But when we turn to 
John we find in brief compass so large a number of paral- 
lels, some of which are surprisingly close, tliat, taken in 
connection with the more general cases in the other gospels, 
they present a body of evidence that is, I think, almost con- 
clusive in favor of one of the religions having borrowed from 
the other. Thus : 

All things were made by him, John i. 3 ; All things have 
their source in me. It is by me that the universe is created 
and destroyed, G. 7, 6-8. There was the true light, John i. 
10 ; I am the light of moon and sun, G. loc. cit. Without 
him was not anything made, John i. 3 ; I am the seed, with- 
out me is nothing made, G. 10, 39. The world was made by 
him, and the world knew him not. He came unto his own, 
and they that were his own received him not, John i. 10-11 ; 
Men distraught know me not in my godly nature ; I take a 
human form and they honor me not, G. 9, 11. Whosoever 
believeth in him shall not perish, John iii. 15 ; He that 
belie veth in me doth not perish, G. 9, 31. My father work- 
eth even until now, and I work, John v. 17 ; There is nothing 



156 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

for me to attain and yet I remain at work, G. 3, 22. (The 
scriptures) are they that bear witness of me, John v. 39 ; By 
all the Vedas I am to be known, G. 15, 15. Every one that 
. . . hath learned cometh unto me, John vi. 45 ; They that 
worship me come unto me, G. 9, 25. I know whence I came, 
. . . but ye know not, John viii. 14 ; I have come through 
many births and thou also ; I know them all, thou knowest 
them not, G. 4, 5. If a man keep my word he shall never 
see death ; whosoever liveth and believeth on me shall never 
die, John viii. 51 ; xi. 26 ; They that trust in me come to 
escape age and death, G. 7, 29 ; also. He that truly knows 
my divine birth and work, on casting off this body is not 
born again but comes to me, G. 4, 9. The Jews therefore 
said unto him. Thou art not yet fifty years old and hast 
thou seen Abraham? John viii. 57; (He said to Krishna) 
Thy birth is later, earlier was the birth of Vivasvat; how 
then may I understand that thou hast declared this in the 
beginning? G. 4, 4. I am the way, and the truth, and the 
life, John xiv. 6 ; I am the way . . . the refuge, the friend, 
life and death, the support, the treasure, the eternal seed, 
G. 9, 18. 

Compare also Eev. i. 17-19, I am the first and the last 
and the living one. I hold the keys of life and death ; 
ib. xxii. 13, Alpha and Omega ; with G. 10, 32-34, I am the 
beginning, the middle, and the end, the wisdom of all wis- 
dom, the speech of them that speak, the letter A among the 
letters, time imperishable, the Creator, death and life. Also 
the phraseology, Ye in me and I in you, John xiv. 20 (so vi. 
bQ and xvii. 20-23) ; In him we live and move and have 
our being, Acts xvii. 28 (Phainomena) ; In him are all crea- 
tures, all is pervaded by him, G. 8, 22; If any worship me 
in loving devotion, they are in me and I in them,i G. 9, 29. 
Also John xiv. 21, He that loveth me ... I shall love 
him, and G. 4, 11, I love them that are devoted to me, even 

^ In the imitation of the Gita found in the fifth book of the epic it is said 
by the Supreme : " I am the father and the son ; ye abide in me, but ye are 
not of me nor am I of you," v. 46, 29 (C. v. 1.) 



CHRIST IN INDIA. 157 

as they to me, so I to them (also 7, 17, He is dear to me). 
In the same chapter, with the thought already illustrated 
above, we find, The world beholdeth him not, neither knoweth 
him, John xiv. 17, compared with, I am not beheld of all . . . 
the world knows me not, G. 7, 25. To this end have I 
been born and to this end have I come into the world, that 
I should bear witness unto the truth. . . . That the world 
might be saved, John xviii. 37 and iii. 17 ; I am born age 
after age for the saving of the good, the destruction of 
evil-doers, and for the sake of establishing virtue, G. 4, 8. 
Compare also John xvii. 3, This is life eternal that they 
should know thee, the only true God, and him whom thou 
didst send, with G. 10, 3, He who knows me, the Lord of the 
world, is freed from all sins {i. e. gets life eternal). 

It seems to me that the parallels here given are almost too 
close in thought as in diction to have sprung from two 
independent sources. But, as has been said, in attempting to 
answer the question which work has borrowed there has not 
been entire unanimity. Some scholars point to the fact that 
the Gita is in Upanishad form, and contains old Upanishad 
material, that it is an antique part of the epic, and that the 
epic existed before our era. The fact that the most striking 
parallels, as in the case of the Buddhistic parallels, are found 
in John, naturally suggests also that this gospel has been the 
borrower. On the other hand, there are several considerations 
tending to modify these statements, which are true enough in 
a general way, but they do not allow for several ignored facts. 
In the first place, Upanishads may be of any age from 600 b. c. 
onward, and sectarian Upanishads are uniformly late. Then 
the metre and language of the Gita are such as to make it 
impossible to connect it closely in time with the ancient Upan- 
ishads even in its oldest parts, and it has besides two differ- 
ent parts, one of which is later than the other, so that it is 
pretty clear that it has been rewritten. But above all, not 
only is the religion as inculcated, with its devotion not to a 
stern master, but to a sin-forgiving, love-demanding savior- 
god in human form, something absolutely unique up to the 



158 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

time it appears, but it is acknowledged also both by friend and 
foe in the epic narrative itself that Krishna is a new form of 
God (not a new god, for Krishna had long been a popular 
god), and that the new religion has as yet few adherents. 
When these facts are weighed together with the fact that 
the epic as we have it is at most not more than two hundred 
years older than the Christian era, and that it is almost certain 
that parts of it are as late as two or perhaps more centuries 
after our era, it seems possible that the original Gita, which 
was without doubt composed at least 200 b. c, and appears 
to have been at first a Yogin tract simply, was affected by the 
introduction of a new religious spirit ^ and that it absorbed 
some of the ideas presented in the form most Oriental and 
nearest to Hindu conceptions ; namely, in the fourth Gospel. 
The most reasonable explanation of the data as a whole 
appears to me to be that the fourth gospel, perhaps not 
uninfluenced by the Gnosticism of the time, but not neces- 
sarily influenced by Buddhistic tradition or by any Sanskrit 
texts, was of a mystical tone that made it peculiarly suitable 
to influence the Hindu divines, who transferred from it such 
phrases and sentiments as best fitted in with the conception 
of Krishna as a god of love. For it must be remembered 
constantly that before Krishna's advent in his new role, those 
characteristics of Krishna that bring him into closest likeness 
with Christ are entirely lacking in the conception of any 
previous Hindu divinity. Buddha never pretended to for- 
give sin, and no old Upanishad suggests that the grace of the 
divinity does more than elect a servitor. But suddenly there 
appears this benign man-god, who proclaims that all sins are 
forgiven to him who believes in Krishna ; and that, though 
those who believe in him are very few in number, yet this 
new religfion of love and faith is better than the old Brah- 

1 A fact of some importance, to be set beside Megasthenes' distinction 
between a great god Dionysos (^i'^a) and a demi-god Herakles (Krishna), is 
that Krishna is unknown in the older Buddhistic literature, which could 
scarcely have ignored him (in favor of Brahman) if he was already a great 
god. 



CHRIST IN INDIA. 159 

manic religion of works and ceremonial purity. I admit freely 
that on a first superficial glance at the relations between John 
and the Synoptic Gospels on the one hand and John and the 
Hindu texts on the other, the easiest solution seems to be 
that John has borrowed from the East ; but I think a closer 
acquaintance with the position of the Gita in relation to other 
Hindu texts and a due recognition not only of the very im- 
portant admissions made by this " new religion " itself, but 
also of the two factors to which I have already called your 
attention, namely, the early influence of Christian missions 
and the very doubtful age of all old Hindu texts, will tend 
to make careful scholars still more careful not to join the 
ranks of those who announce, apparently without taking 
any of these points into consideration, that the Gospel came 
from India. 

In other respects also, the language and tales of the 
later epic suggest the possibility of Christian influence quite 
as much as Christian tales suggest Indian influence. I 
lay no great weight on them, but they should be known, 
if only as a companion-piece to what is found in the West 
and referred to the East, Krishna is a by-name of Vyasa, 
the author of the epic (in so far as the arranger of the 
mass may be called author), who, though not identified with 
Krishna as Supreme God, is himself divine, and is described 
as " the unborn (that is, the eternal) and ancient one, the 
only son of God, born of a virgin, very part, anga, of God."^ 
He is a figure unknown till the end of the epic, and even 
his name Vyasas, vydsas, has a certain similarity with iesos. 
Then of the god Krishna it is said : " He, the guardian of his 
flock, the sinless God, the Lord of the world, consented 
to the death of (himself and) his race that he might fulfil the 
word of the seers," where, if we had shepherd and prophets, 
the comparison would be very striking.^ Another passage 
not connected with the Gita, but close to biblical phraseology, 
may be found in the description of the avenging spirits : 

1 Mbh., xii. 350, 4, 5, 51. 2 Mbh., xvi. 6, 15-16. 



160 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

"If thou goest into the depths of the earth, or if thou 
shouldst fly above, or if thou fleest to the further side 
of the sea, still thou shalt find no escape from them " ; as 
compared with the Psalmist's words, " Whither shall I fly 
. . . into heaven . . . Sheol . . . the uttermost parts of the 
sea ? " 1 Compare also " I am not crying in the wilderness," 
followed by, " Thou seest the faults of others, though they 
be no larger than mustard, but thine own faults thou canst 
not see, though they be as large as a hilva (tree)." ^ As these 
comparisons have not, I think, been noticed before, I give 
them for what they are worth. Even the crucifixion has its 
analogy in the story of the Stake-saint (impaling being the 
equivalent of crucifixion), who was unjustly impaled with 
thieves, but he did not die like the thieves and so awakened 
the wonder of the royal guard. They went and told the 
king, who was frightened when he heard of it and came 
to the Saint on the Stake and besought his forgiveness, 
which was granted, as the king had acted ignorantly. He 
is besung in all the worlds as the Impaled One.^ But all the 
rest of the stor}^ is grotesque. It is perhaps not impossible 
that there is here the echo of Christian story. 

A curious historical sketch in the epic relates that the cult 
of Krishna as one God was introduced after the notion of 
Unitarianism had been gained by three pilgrims, who went 
to an Albion in the Northwest and there found this religion 
practised by White Men. Professor Weber, despite the 
repeated statement that the White Island was located in 
the extreme North or Northwest, referred this to Alexan- 
dria, and all sorts of suppositions have been made in regard 
to the locality, the three sages being identified with the 
Three Wise Men of the East, and the Northwest being 
referred to every Western land from Parthia to Rome. The 
legend is late and an obvious intrusion into the epic. It 
lays stress on the Unity of God, rather than on the All-god 
idea, though the latter is, of course, not given up, and 

1 Mbh., iv. 14, 50 (also late in the epic) ; Ps. cxxxix. 7 f£. 
3 Mbh., i. 74, 35, 82. 3 Mbh., i. 107 and 108. 



CHRIST IN INDIA. 161 

the devotees of Krishna who insist on this idea call them- 
selves ehdntinas, or Unitarians. For myself, I am more 
inclined to believe that the (^ivaite faith of Kashmere (a phi- 
losophical deism) is here recast into Vishnuite form ; for the 
sea to which the pilgrims come is merely the mythical milk- 
sea of the Himalayas, and Kashmere men are almost white 
as compared with Hindus. The doctrine taught shows no 
trace of Christianity, but only of a belief in One God. Yet 
it is possible that, as the section is very likely not earlier 
than the fourth or fifth century of our era, a pilgrimage 
may have been made to Herat or Merv, where there were 
already at that time Christian bishops. ^ 

But it will be asked, Is there any warrant for supposing that 
Krishnaism is a religion which would absorb Christian ideas ? 

As I have said already, the Hindus have always been 
exceedingly liberal in religious opinion. Sub-sects quarrelled 
about minute differences, but between the great bodies, Bud- 
dliists, Vishnuites, ^ivaites, there was an easy tolerance. Side 
by side in amity dwelt the most diverse faiths, and Hindu 
emperors have often professed two religions at once. It was 
recognized that creed was an intellectual matter, and a differ- 
ence of religion was like a difference in philosophy. Thus, 
amicably consorting, the Hindus borrowed from each other 
both rites and ideas. A new religion was a matter of interest 
rather than of hatred, and what was deemed good in it was 
quietly accepted. So we find that Buddhism borrowed from 
Hinduism, Hinduism in turn from Buddhism, and both prob- 
ably from Christianity, just as the Aryans, ever since they 
settled in India, have borrowed all sorts of religious notions 
from un-Aryan peoples. 

We are by no means obliged, however, to rely on gener- 
alizations in support of the statement that Krishnaism would 

1 As Krishna in the Gita says that there are very few who acknowledge 
him to be the Supreme God, so it is expressly stated that these Unitarians 
are few in number, xii. 349, 62. Such repeated admissions only bear out the 
belief, otherwise well supported, that Krishnaism in the Gita and ekdntin 
forms are two late developments, though the latter is the later. 

11 



162 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

naturally be influenced by Christianity. In the first place, it 
was of all Hindu religions the one which contained elements 
most likely to expose it to Christian influence. Buddhism 
was a godless, soulless religion ; ^ivaism was a religion of 
rites and austerities. But Krishnaism in its popular form 
was a religion of joy. It discountenanced bloody sacrifice and 
inculcated love. It needed only the safeguard of moral 
cleanliness to turn this love, which in a native form tended 
to voluptuousness, into a refining influence, and fit the devotee 
of Krishna to appreciate the tenets of Christianity. 

Yet to show not only that Krishnaism was a religion likely 
to be affected by Christianity, but that it actually was so 
affected, and that ,it did borrow from the latter religion, we 
must advance from the ever dubious dates of epic episode to 
a later period in the history of both cults.^ 

After the great epic come the Puranas, purdnas, some of 
which may be in part as old as the later sections of the epic. 
Most of the Puranas, however, follow in the wake of the epic, 
and, although some of them inculcate the worship of Civa, 
are especially devoted to the praise of Krishna. 

But in these works as they appear in their later form a 
sudden transformation takes place in the character of the god 
Krishna. Not only is he now always recognized as identical 
with the Supreme God, but in certain of the later Puranas, as 
has been shown in detail in the master-study made on this 
subject by Professor Weber,^ he is worshipped less as an 
adult, a man-god, than as a sort of Christ-child. His birth- 
day, like Christmas, becomes the holy day of his worshippers, 
and it is to the Madonna with the Child that the offering is 

1 Before leaving the older man-god Krishna, a word may be said in regard to 
his name. The crude notion that Krishna is a corruption of the name Christ 
was easily dispelled by showing that Krishna is an ancient Vedic poet and later 
saint. So also his attribute of Jishnu, " victorious," is as old as the Kig Veda, 
and hence the form Jishnu Krishna is only a chance collocation and of chance 
likeness with the name Jesus Christ, though possibly the similar sound may 
have led more easily to the identification of Krishna with Christ, which is 
found at a later time. 

2 Krishna's Janmashtami, Abh. Berl. Ak. 1867, pp. 217 ff. 



CHRIST IN INDIA. 163 

given, as the whole rite and ceremony are in their honor. 
The scene too of Krishna's nativity is not only like that of 
Christ's, but in becoming so, it has altered all the old inher- 
ited features of the Krishna tradition, which has been re- 
nounced in favor of this new presentation. Krishna is no 
longer heroic in birth as in life. The place of his nativity 
has become a stable, gokula^ and his birth, which in the older 
tradition occurred in prison at a time of fear and danger, is 
now of peaceful character. His mother Devaki, scarcely 
mentioned in the older tradition, is now represented as a 
Madonna Lactans, holding the infant Krishna in her arms 
to her breast. This Krishna performs too the miracles of 
Christ, and the events of his life are those of Christ. Some 
of these traits are indeed antique. Thus Krishna's killing 
of Kansa, the local Herod, is an old heroic legend of the god. 
But they are now embellished with features as utterly dis- 
similar to the old presentation of Krishna's personality as the 
new legends are unlike the old tradition. Never before this 
time did Krishna appear in the rdle of a god whose glance 
destroys sin, whose pity for his believing followers leads 
him to cure them of sickness by performing miracles in their 
behalf. Thus, beside the massacre of the innocents, there is 
the restoration to life of a woman's son, the healing of a 
cripple, and the pouring of a box of ointment over Krishna, 
— stories which agree with Christian tradition far more 
closely than does Christian tradition with that of Buddhism. 
All these stories are in the later continuation of epic narra- 
tive, either in the Jaimini Bharata or equally late Puranas, 
and their modification of the old legend is much too sweeping 
to be brushed aside as accidental. The especial weight laid 
upon the Child-cult in this worship of Krishna, so utterly 
opposed to that of the older Krishna-worship, makes it impos- 
sible to doubt that at least this form of Krishnaism derives 
from a Christian source. 

Those points in the connection of Krishna and Christ 
which scholars have at times urged, but which seem to be 
without special significance, I have not mentioned, because 



164 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

such details, if not utilized, do not affect the argument, and I 
need say only as regards them what I have said before, that 
exasrarerations will be found on both sides. On the other 
hand, it would not be fair to leave the Child-cult as here 
presented without an additional remark in respect of a dis- 
cussion of the subject by one eminent critic who, while 
" constrained to admit a body of common relations " and 
recognizing that the representation of the Madonna Lactans 
"has really been copied from similar representations in Chris- 
tian iconography," may nevertheless be thought to depreciate 
the force of the houleversement which has taken place in the 
whole Krishna legend, and which Professor Weber in the 
essay cited above has very justly emphasized. M. Barth, 
from whose work on India's religions, p. 223, have been 
taken the phrases just quoted, says that " traces of Christian 
influence do not appear with any clearness till much later 
(than the Krishnaism of the epic) in certain peculiarities of 
worship ; " that is, as he has previously explained, he does not 
think that all the pastoral effect in Krishna-worship is 
modern. He instances as antique the Kansa legend, and 
says that Devaki does not occupy a prominent place in the 
worship of her son. A casual reading of the page, however, 
is likely to give a false impression. Part of M. Earth's 
criticism is quite justified. As remarked above, the Kansa 
legend is old. But we must disentangle the critique of the 
early connection of Christianity with the epic Krishna and 
that of the Christ-Child and Krishna-Child. Now, as it 
happens, M. Barth is speaking of both together, and his 
discussion of the borrowing is concerned mainly with the 
more dubious or older part. But, as was perhaps inevitable 
in this grouping, he has so knit older and later together in 
his critique as to combine both in one verdict, where it would 
have been safer to judge each separately. 

Thus, M. Barth gives no reason at all for refusing to 
recognize the peculiar force of the stable-birth (in connec- 
tion with the Madonna Lactans) except a statement which 
unites with this factor another with which this has nothing 



CHRIST IN INDIA. 165 

to do, namely, the pastoral scenes of Krishna as a grown man. 
Taking both together in one clause, he says that " the pas- 
toral scenes, and the idea of assigning to Krishna a stable as 
»his cradle, are connected with the most ancient representa- 
tions of the Veda." Even as regards the pastoral scenes, this 
is questionable, and as regards the gohula it is a mistake, if 
the somewhat ambiguous phrase " are connected," etc., means 
that the gohula is part of Krishna-worship in the Vedic age. 
But if this last phrase means only that the Vedic age had 
cows, such a general asseveration has no bearing on the fact 
that in all the old worship of Krishna, as given in the epic, 
and in detail in the older Puranas, there is no child-worship 
and no stable-birth. Surely there is here a new feature, and 
one that cannot be shunted with the remark that cows and 
stables, without any bearing on Krishna, are Vedic. Then as 
regards the Madonna, the remark of M. Barth cited above 
is true of the normal attitude taken toward the Mother in 
the older accounts ; but this is the very point of the proof, for 
in the texts devoted to the Child-cult, the mother, on the 
other hand, does "occupy a very prominent place." It will 
be seen, therefore, that the objection to the derivation of the 
Child-cult from a Christian source is in part due to uniting 
this side of the Krishna-cult with an older and more dubious 
phase of historical relationship, and that the argument against 
one of the most important points either has no bearing or is 
contradicted by the facts. Even then M. Barth recog- 
nizes that the special Madonna Lactans representation itself 
is drawn from Christian sources, and I know of no one else 
who has since cast any doubt on the truth of a theory 
which, as affects this later phase of Krishnaism, seems to me 
scarcely a theory, but as well established a case of borrowing 
as is recorded in the annals of religious history. 

The epic itself refers but once, and that is in a passage 
generally admitted to be late, to Krishna's exjDloits in child- 
hood. Even then the feat ascribed to him is merely killing a 
hawk. The later stories have been drawn not only from the 
gospels, but from the pseudepigrapha ; for we find, besides the 



166 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

statements that Krishna's look heals from sin, and that at 
the time of his birth his reputed father was journeying with 
his mother to Muttra " to pay his taxes," the later notion 
that the water in which the child is washed is curative (found 
also in a late apocryphal Evangelium) ; just as we find too 
in the history of Krishna the late Christophoros legend. 

But it is especially in the alteration of the character of 
Krishna as thus drawn that the proof of outside influence is 
given, and we may notice here how this differentiates these 
parallels and those between Buddhism and Christianity. For 
whereas the latter concern characters not dissimilar in their 
manhood, their compassion, and their gentle graciousness, the 
former transform completely the old Indian divinity and pre- 
sent it in a light exactly like that of the Christian parallel, 
as this character was delineated at just the time when the 
Indian divinity also was thus radically changed. For the cult 
of the Madonna with the Child and the peculiar worship of the 
Child as a suckling in his mother's arms is not a feature of 
primitive Christianity. It arose probably in the second cen- 
tury, but it did not become a common feature before the third 
or fourth century,^ and before this time there is no sign of 
the cult of the Krishna-Child in India. In the fourth cen- 
tury, too, arose the practice of observing Christmas Day, 
which was celebrated not at first on December 25, but on 
various dates, for in the third century Christ's birthday was 
variously held to be on January 5 or 6, March 28, April 19 or 
20, May 20, and November 19 ; just as the Puranas that de- 
scribe the Birthday Festival of Krishna give the time vari- 
ously on different dates (between June and September), 
though they all agree that the hour is midnight. 

We cannot think, as was taught when Krishna's name was 
first explained as the nomen ipsum corruptum Christi, that 
Krishna-worship is all a corruption of the Christian religion. 
For with more light on the background we can see more 
clearly what lies behind the Child-god Krishna. But in 
seeing this we are also brought to recognize how great is the 
1 Compare Weber, loc. cit., p. 336. 



CHRIST IN INDIA. 16T 

change in the character of the Hindu divinity. So decided 
is the alteration and so direct is the connection between this 
later phase of Krishnaism and the Christianity of the early 
centuries of our era, that it is no expression of extravagant 
fancy but a sober historical statement to say that in all 
probability the Hindus in this cult of the Madonna and 
Child have in reahty, though unwittingly, been worshipping 
the Christ-Child for fully a thousand years.^ And when we 
see, as we can see in this case, how ready were the Hindus to 
adopt Christian forms of worship, we shall perhaps not hesi- 
tate to admit that that earlier phase of Krishnaism, which is 
found in the epic, may also have reached its present form not 
without some influence from that religion which, in so many 
ways, has been potent in inspiring the pious imagination of 
the Hindu. 

For not in Akbar's time alone did Christians expound their 
doctrines in India ; and not only among the lowly were they 
received. Kings as well as peasants welcomed them, and 
though we have no direct evidence of this before the time of 
^iladitya, yet, as this Hindu monarch received Christian 
Syrian missionaries at his court in the seventh century, so 
we may well believe that the liberal-minded Rajas of anti- 
quity did not shut their doors to any creed. Even in the 
epic, the court of a great king is picturesquely described as 
filled with learned teachers of religion, " who argued this and 
that" and taught freely every form of religious philosophy, 
idealism, " may-be-ism," and nihilism; while the epic itself 
declares that "All names of God are synonymous," and in the 
Gita Krishna says in substance : " My way is the easy path of 
salvation ; but if any one prefers the hard path of asceticism 
and philosophy, he too may be saved." Until the Moham- 
medans taught it, it is doubtful whether such a thing as reli- 
gious persecution was known in India. Such a soil as this 
was already prepared for the seed when the sowers first came 
from the West. 

1 The worship of the Krishna-Child and Madonna in India is probably not 
older than the sixth or seventh century a. d. 



168 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

"What has been of still later planting may be surmised only, 
for monotheistic growth cannot be referred with certainty to 
Christianity after the Mohammedans entered India, But, on 
the other hand, who can tell how great has beeil the influence 
exerted by the teaching of the first centuries ? We do not 
know. We may exaggerate its importance and we may 
unduly depreciate it. For my own part, though I do not 
know that it was an influence which materially affected the 
thought of the people, I must confess that the ingrowth 
of Christian ideas may have been deeper than we can state 
with certainty, and that, for example, the little band of early 
Christians in South India may have been instrumental in fash- 
ioning the lofty ideals of some of the noble religions which we 
know existed in after time and the influence of which in their 
turn may still be potent among the sects of to-day. 

That there was a late counter-growth from seeds of the 
Orient, which, starting in India, blossomed in the Occident 
in tales of saints and in moral legends, found first in Persia, 
then in the Talmud, and finally, perhaps, in the vision of 
Dante, may be admitted. The West owes much to India, 
and though most of this was brought westward centuries 
after the Christian era, it is still within the bounds of possi- 
bility that even the New Testament was not completed with- 
out a graft from such a foreign growth. But this is as far as 
the historical data permit us to go, and such a possibility, 
affecting at most only what is secondary in the account, fur- 
nishes no base for the belief that the original narrative of 
Christ's birth and teaching derives from Hindu sources. 



ANCIENT AND MODERN HINDU GUILDS. 

GUILDS IN ANTIQUITY. 

The guilds of India can be traced back to about 600 B. c. But 
it is probable that they are still older, for when they are first 
mentioned it is as a factor of considerable importance in 
the state. They may be as old as the Vedic period, and it 
has even been claimed by Professor Geldner that they are 
referred to in the Rig Veda, but this is quite doubtful. Nev- 
ertheless, although the earliest law-books recognize the 
authority of the guilds, they do not assign to them so con- 
spicuous a position as does the later law and we may there- 
fore regard the first six centuries before our era as a period 
of development, when these associations still had much to 
gain. But what they still lacked they had gained completely 
by the third or fourth century A. D. ; and it is not likely 
that they ever possessed more power than they did at 
that time, although they have maintained a very autocratic 
position down to our own century, and in certain districts 
they are still the rulers of the business world about them. 
Even in the third century b. c. they were very powerful. 

Unfortunately, the oldest texts make no clear statement in 
respect of the powers of the guilds or of their organization. 
But their growth in influence may be inferred from two 
typical rules of the law-books. Gautama, about 500 B. c, 
says : " Laws of districts, castes, and families, when not 
opposed to sacred texts, are an authority," ^ and then adds 

1 As I cannot quote the original texts (here and in the following passages 
from the ancient literature), I will comprise in one note most of the references 
made to my authorities in the order given. G. xi. 20-21 (Vas. i. 17 ; xix. 7) j 
XV. 18; Y. i. 360; M. viii. 41 (B. i. 1, 2, 3-7), 46; Vas. xvi. 15; M. viii. 219, 



170 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

to this the words : " Ploughmen, merchants, herdsmen, 
money-lenders, and artisans (are also authority) for their 
respective classes." Here local usage and the laws of castes 
still stand pre-eminent. But in Mann's law-book, completed 
somewhat earlier than the Christian era, we read : " A king 
should enforce his own law only after a careful examination of 
the laws of castes and districts, guild-laws^ and family-laws," 
where the laws of the guilds are already reckoned as on a par 
with those of castes and families. In the late epic, the people 
at a court are grouped as "ordinary people, priests, and 
Naigamas," xvi. 7, 8. These last are undoubtedly the Sheths 
of the Buddhists and of modern times. 

If the king was bound to respect the laws of the guilds, he 
was none the less expected to see that the members of the % 
guild followed their own laws. These laws were in fact as 
authoritative as royal decrees. This is a point often touched 
upon in the early law-books, where (in the words of Yajna- 
valkya, whose code belongs to the beginning of our era) " the 
king must discipline and establish again on the path (of duty) 
all such as have erred from their own laws, whether families, 
castes, guilds, associations, or (people of certain) districts." 

Till the time of Vishnu's law-book, third century A. d. 
no one of these guilds appears as pre-eminent, but in this work 
" metal-workers and smiths of silver and gold " are mentioned 
particularly, though this pre-eminence may be due to accident. 
But the circumstance is interesting, because exactly these 
guilds became the chief guilds of ordinary towns, and because 
they were very likely the first to band together in self-defence, 
all the guilds originating in this way, but the goldsmiths per- 

221 ; Brihas. viii. 9. On the possibility of guilds in the Brahmanic period, 
compare the use of other words for corporations and the early use of the 
later, technical word in TS. iii. 4, 5, 1 ; AV. i. 9, 3 ; Ait. Br. iii. 30, 3 ; Kaushit. 
Up. ii. 20 ; and compare the puja and grdmaydjaka, G. xv. 16 ; Mbh. iii. 200, 7 ; 
M. iv. 205; iii. 151, 164; Yaj. i. 161, 360; ii. 192; M. iii. 154; V. x. 4. In 
Buddhistic literature, the following passages : CuUav. v. 8 ; vi. 1, 4; Mahav. i. 
7, 1 ; viii. 1, 16 ff . ; Ep. Ind. ii. p. 98. From the epic, further, Mbh. v. 34, 49 ; 
xii. 88, 29-30 ; 59, 49 ; 140, 64 ; xv. 7, 8 ; iii. 249, 16 ; xii. 107, 10-32 ; ii. 6, 80 ; 
xii. 36, 19 ; xii. 321, 143 ; Nar. i. 40, 155 ; x. 1 ; Brihas. xvii. 5 ft. 



ANCIENT AND MODERN HINDU GUILDS. 171 

haps first of all, since the old law in regard to smiths was so 
extremely severe as to call for some union on their part.^ 

All compacts made by guilds as corporate bodies come 
under the general law of compacts, and both the older and 
later law-books content themselves with saying on this point 
that "the king should see to it that guild-compacts are 
enforced ; " while in regard to compacts made by the guild- 
members for their own observance, the older law enjoined 
that the king should banish the member who violated any 
agreement made by the association to which the offender 
belonged. 

The reason why the guilds came into prominence just when 
they did is doubtless because it was at that period that the 
Buddhists arose, who reached the acme of their power in the 
third century B. c. and were important for a thousand years 
afterwards. In accordance with this fact stands, too, the 
special prominence of guild-life in the eastern part of India, 
the home of Buddhism. As the Buddhists placed the warrior- 
caste before the priest-caste and gave unrestricted freedom to 
the third estate, it is not wonderful that guild-life is char- 
acteristic of a Buddhistic environment. The same, however, 
is true in regard to the Jains, a rival heretical sect, which 
also arose in the sixth century B. c. Hence it is that, on 
the one hand, early Buddhistic literature, from 350 B. c. 
onwards, teems with references to the guilds and speaks of 
the Heads of Guilds as of the highest social position, while, 
on the other hand, the seat of guild-power to-day is still found 
among the Jains (the Buddhists having left India), and 
especially among the descendants of those who claim to have 
come originally from the eastern seat of Buddhistic and Jain 

1 The old law in regard to a goldsmith found guilty of defrauding was 
based on the principle that a goldsmith can most easily deceive, and that 
when he does so he is " the vilest of sinners." The king is therefore directed 
to see to it that a goldsmith found guilty of cheating shall be chopped up into 
very small pieces with sharp knives, whereas ordinary thieves or cheats are 
merely beheaded. By uniting together and ostracizing a guilty member, the 
guild could inflict a punishment which, if it was not so severe, probably had a 
still more deterrent eifect. 



1T2 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

culture. Even in the earliest Buddhistic sculptures we find 
reference to guilds and guild-masters. From the literature 
we see that the Heads of Guilds were great householders, 
who were not only high state officials, but on occasion became 
kings, at all times being represented as in the social set of 
kings and princes, friends and intimates of the various Rajas 
of Oudh 1 and Benares. They bore, too, the same name con- 
ferred to-day on the Heads of Guilds ; namely, Sheth, meaning 
optimus, the Heads being in name as in fact a literal aris- 
tocracy. The Sheth in old times was often addressed sim- 
ply as householder, but with the connotation of land-owner, 
landed-proprietor. From the law it appears that there were 
guilds of various sorts, but the only prominent one in 
Buddhist literature is that of the merchants, those members 
of the " third caste " so oppressed by Brahmanism, so liberated 
by Buddhism. The Sheth who is a Householder (a higher 
title) is sometimes the king's treasurer, as if the word 
(literally " house-lord ") meant ruler of the king's house, for 
he is the chief official of the kingdom. The Sheth's office, 
either as treasurer or simple Sheth, was, however, hereditary. 
Such, in Buddha's day, were the great Sheth families of 
Benares and the neighboring towns. They represent a cross- 
cut through the ancient system of castes, a plutocracy perpet- 
uating itself as an aristocracy. This view was adopted by the 
Brahmans themselves, who soon after this period began to 
make a sharp distinction between the very wealthy and the 
ordinary members of the third estate, who still remained a 
despicable caste "created for the king to devour;" till the 
new democratic tendency finds expression in the words of the 
epic sage, who says : " That which is called the wealthy is a 
very important member of the state ; for verily a man with 
money is the top of all creation." The great epic is full of 
allusions to the guilds. Their power is reckoned as equal to 

* This word is with us regularly but erroneously pronounced as if ou had 
the " continental " sound ; but it is the English form of the native name (pro- 
nounce Owdh). Raj and Punjab, too, have the English j-sound and the 
vowel a is here long (pronounce Rawj, Punjawb). 



ANCIENT AND MODERN HINDU GUILDS. 173 

that of the army ; their Heads must be " talked over " by 
spies when the king would subdue another kingdom ; they 
are " supported by union," and the king is especially charged 
not to tax them too heavily, lest they become disaffected, 
which is represented as a very great calamity. As the epic 
was probably completed soon after our era, it is interesting to 
notice that perhaps the modern Panchayat was already 
known at that date. For in one of the didactic portions, 
mention is made of the " five, valliant and wise " who in each 
town "preserve order." They are expressly stated to be a 
united body "among the people," that is, in the country. 
There is also one passage where the later Mahajans may be 
referred to in the epic. For many centuries this word 
{mahdjana, literally " big people ") has designated the masters 
of the more important guilds as well as the guilds themselves. 
Nowadays it is usually applied in the eastern part of India to 
wealthy bankers and gold-merchants. The passage in the 
epic, however, does not certainly use the word in its modern 
sense, and it is several centuries before the word occurs again 
in its modern meaning. 

In the law-books of Narada and Brihaspati, assigned to the 
fifth and sixth centuries of our era, some new legal material is 
found in regard to guilds. We learn that the guild is gov- 
erned by a board of from two to five persons. The villages 
are directed to " take the advice " of such a Panchayat, which 
oversees the affairs of smaller associations as well as its own. 
Banishment is the punishment of any one who injures the joint- 
stock of a guild or disobeys its laws. Banishment and con- 
fiscation of his entire property is the penalty for a man's failure 
to perform an agreement entered into by all the guild. The 
power of the- guilds at this epoch is shown by the fact that 
the king must approve of whatever the guilds do to other people^ 
and that there may be no mistake is added, whether what they 
do is cruel or hind. This is a plain advance on the earlier law 
in this regard. The question as to what is to be done if a 
dispute arises between the Sheths and their guilds is also 
opened here, and it is ruled that the king shall act as umpire 



174 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

between them. On the other hand, if the king learns that a 
whole guild, actuated hy hatred^ is boycotting one of its own 
members, he is directed to "restrain them." All funds 
donated (by the king) to a single member of a guild shall 
belong to all and be divided among the guild, or be bestowed 
on needy persons. All royal gifts and all expenditures of the 
society are common to all. 

The guilds at this time (the fifth or sixth century a.d.) tried 
their own law-suits, but a right of appeal to the king as final 
court is permitted. If, however, a case is appealed and is 
again lost, the appellant must pay double what he was fined 
by the first court. A very decided stand is taken by Narada 
in regard to the old question whether scriptural law or local 
custom is authoritative. " Custom," he says, " decides every- 
thing and overrules scriptural law," 

It is Narada who gives us the first rules in regard to appren- 
tices. From these it appears that a young man desirous of 
learning a trade was free to do so (in other words, " caste " was 
not so strict an index of occupation as it is supposed to have . 
been). The young man left his father's house and lived with 
a master. This master taught him and fed him and made him 
work, but might not make him do any other than the trade- 
work which he was learning. The youth was " bound out," for 
there is a special law which permits the master to compel the 
apprentice's return should the latter run away. The appren- 
tice might be whipped or shut up if he was disobedient. In fact, 
he was to be " treated like a son." That he was bound out 
for a given length of time and that the advantage from his 
work was wholly his master's, follows from another law, which 
specifies that in case the apprentice has learned the trade 
more quickly than the contract calls for, the time left over 
shall be his master's, and all the profit derived from the 
apprentice during that period shall accrue to his master. If 
agreed upon in advance, however, the apprentice might be 
rewarded with a fee when he became proficient, but he should 
continue to work for his master till the stated time was up. 
The pupil is expressly commanded to be humble before his 



ANCIENT AND MODERN HINDU GUILDS. 175 

master. The reason given is quaint enough to quote : '(l^or 
science is like a river, ever advancing downward to a humoler 
level ; therefore as one's knowledge grows broader and deeper 
one should become ever more humble toward the source of 
one's knowledge." 

Very important evidence is given in regard to the guilds 
by the inscriptions on rocks and copper-plates, found over 
Northern India. At one time we read of guilds presenting 
moneys as religious bodies, at another a man registers himself 
as " merchant Head of (such) a guild." In one inscription of 
the fifth century there is a very instructive account of a sun- 
temple built and endowed by a prosperous guild of weavers, 
who had emigrated from their native district and after vari- 
ous hardships prospered sufficiently to build a temple. Here 
is brought out prominently the fact that a change of occupa- 
tion is not unusual. Some of these weavers, it is recorded, 
took to other trades. 

Another inscription shows that the guilds acted as banks. 
They received as a body moneys in perpetuity, a trust-fund, 
the principal of which they kept, but for the use of this they 
paid, to the beneficiary named in the grants, five per cent inter- 
est (a month). Here the saJAa, "guild hall," is spoken of.^ 

A Nepalese legend of the third or fourth century records 
that Thana, which is minutely described, was ruled by a 
strong merchant guild.^ Later literature down to our own 
time contains frequent references to such bodies, but no 
thorough treatment of them is to be found, though the allu- 
sions to the conspicuous position held by the guilds and their 
Heads fully attest the correctness of the law-books in laying 
so much stress upon their power. 

The check on this power was held by the king, in his pre- 
rogative of taxing at will whenever he could claim that "hard 
times " induced hard taxes. Ordinarily, a small tax is put on 
every marketable article, the tax to be paid in kind or in 

1 Corpus Ins. Ind. vol. iii. No. 18; Nasik Ins. Arch. Surv. vol. iv. p. 102. 

2 Oppert in the Madras Journal, 1878, p. 194 ; Bombay Gazetteer, vol. xiii. 
p. 406. 



176 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

money. But when occasion arose, the king might tax as he 
pleased, or even take what he pleased from all subjects save 
the priests. When land-grants became common, it was cus- 
tomary to have stated in them just what tax each trader or 
inhabitant of the town deeded in the grant was to pay to the 
grantee. Most of these imposts were decided by the king 
(or officer) " in consultation with the Heads of guilds." ^ 

MODERN GUILDS. 

In the autumn of 1896, thanks to the courtesy of the dis- 
tinguished Sheth of Ahmedabad, Mr. Lalbhai Dalpatbhai, I 
was granted the privilege of an interview with the leading 
Sheths and Patels (heads of artisan guilds) in that city, who 
very kindly consented, at Mr, Lalbhai Dalpatbhai's request, 
to meet at an informal conference and answer the various 
questions which I should put to them in regard to the rules 
and practices of their local guilds. The value of the informa- 
tion received lies partly in the fact that Ahmedabad is the 
centre of guild-life in India ; but particularly in this, that the 
guilds have no written laws and in many cases no clear plan 
of procedure in unusual circumstances ; and that the power of 
the guilds is declining and their practices will soon be modi- 
fied through the ever-increasing number of merchants and 
manufacturers who do not belong to any guild, and whose 
methods are more modern, so that their influence is destruc- 
tive of old conditions. Some of the statements made at this 
conference by the gaildmen agree with those embodied in 
various reports of guilds published in a more or less fragmen- 
tary manner in different numbers of the Bombay Gazetteer. 
Others are in direct contradiction to such reports. In the 
former case, I have given precedence to what has already 
been published; in the latter, I have generally presented 
the corrected statement first, for in instances of this sort I 
inquired particularly of different members, in regard both to 
their personal knowledge and to what they knew by hearsay, 

1 Compare the first Surya grant in the Bhaunagar collection, pp. 67-69. 



ANCIENT AND MODERN HINDU GUILDS. 177 

and when all agreed as against a printed record made by- 
some official, I judged that they knew best. But in regard to 
historical data I was unable to learn anything of value. In 
answer to what had happened in the past, the members of the 
conference always referred to two or three aged Sheths who 
"remembered" this or that. Sometimes they remembered in 
unison, sometimes they remembered variously. When this 
happened they accepted it as a proof that there was " no use 
in asking about things too far back." I came to the same 
conclusion and omit all cases of divergent recollections. 

To the information obtained at Ahraedabad, I have here 
added what I could gather elsewhere in Gujarat and in 
Rajputana, collecting also what I could in other towns to the 
east and north. But I soon found that, though the name 
remained, and some guild-activity was to be found as far 
away as Lahore and Benares, yet it was always a lessen- 
ing ripple as compared with the centre of guild-inter- 
est in Gujarat, where, indeed, after the earlier Buddhistic 
period, the guilds seem to have always had their firmest 
stronghold. 

To those unacquainted with modern conditions it may be 
necessary to say that, apart from Rajas and scholars or saints, 
the modern merchants, Vanias, or Bunias, are practically the 
most important caste; after them come common priests. There 
is no warrior-caste. The Rajputs regard themselves as dis- 
tinct. Small traders, such as the Lohanas and Bhatias of 
Kathiawar, usually claim Rajput descent, as do most artisans. 
But goldsmiths claim that they are pure Vanias. The mer- 
chants of the North, when not Parsees or Mohammedans, are 
usually either Shravaks,^ that is Jains, or Vishnuite Vanias, 
or Smartas, — that is, Brahmans of the (^iva faith ; more rarely 
they are Meshris, that is, Brahmans of the Vishnu faith. Thus 
it will be seen that all the old castes have become more or 

1 The word is always spelled in this way, and I keep this and other forms, 
such as Eajput, rajaputra, now almost Anglo-Indian. Shravak is, of course, 
^rdvaka; as Smarta, Mahajan, etc., are properly s?naria, mahajan, etc. Towns 
in -dhad are also usually written without circumflex. 

12 



178 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

less mercantile. It may be observed, further, that guild-men 
are usually Hindus, who claim Aryan descent. But in the 
North, Mohammedans occasionally form guilds, as they form 
castes, in weak imitation of Hindu models. 

THE GUILD AND SHETH OR PATEL. 

No perfect uniformity exists in regard to the names and 
titles of guilds and their chiefs. But there is a general 
distinction between artisan and merchant guilds. There is, 
again, a distinction between the village-guild and the guild 
of a large town. 

In a village there is sometimes but one guild, and the 
head of the guild is then the head of the village itself, the 
Patel. In many cases there is but one guild-occupation, all 
other villagers being " outsiders," who do not belong to 
the "village-guild" at all. These outsiders are people of 
the lowest class, public servants and the like. In some 
cases they are recognized as " intruders ; " that is, as people 
who have come into the village and settled there, but do 
not belong to it, " outsiders " with a touch of their profane 
birth still adhering to them. But all trades usually form 
one guild in a village, and the members form one corporate 
body against encroachments on the part of the government or 
the entrance of new families with like trades into the village. 

Distinct guilds are formed by the scission of separate 
guilds as the village grows into a town. But there always 
remains a loose trade-union between all the guilds even 
of a large city. The guilds thus separate are often identical 
with caste. This, however, is not the case in very large 
towns, where, owing to outside influence and other causes, 
trade (guilds) and caste are more apt to be diverse. 

The complete guild-system of a city makes a clear dis- 
tinction between the Panch or artisans' guild with the Patel 
as its head-man, and the Mahajan or guild of merchants, 
bankers, and large dealers, the leader of which is called 
a Sheth. 



ANCIENT AND MODERN HINDU GUILDS, 179 

This title of Sheth is used in two ways, the one I have 
just described, and another, according to which Sheth is 
a title of honor given to the head-man of the city, hence 
called Nagar-Sheth, or City-Chief. As a merely complimen- 
tary title this name Nagar-Sheth may be applied to wealthy 
traders, but properly it is bestowed upon a prominent civilian 
who may or may not be a merchant. Not very long ago, 
at the time when Mr. Lely wrote for the Bombay Gazetteer, 
the Nagar-Sheth of Ahmedabad was still a very influential 
person, but he has already lost much of his power, which 
has been taken by a leading manufacturer, a man who 
does not belong to any guild, but by public gifts and 
wealth he has won in the business world a position of 
commanding influence, — a fact indicative of the rapid pass- 
ing away of the old order. The Nagar-Sheth of Ahmedabad 
is the head of a great Jain family, and his title has been 
inherited for several generations. He is practically the 
leader of the religious community of the Jains, and a few 
years ago he and the chief of the cloth-makers' guild, who 
happened to be the head of the Vishnu sect, could, in Mr. 
Lely's words, " carry public opinion on a religious or semi- 
religious question." In other towns this title has become 
a mere name, and even in Ahmedabad the Nagar-Sheth 
has now only a religious and social importance. As Sheth 
of the bankers' guild he is, apart from his civil ofhce, influ- 
ential socially, but his pre-eminence as City Chief was due 
originally to the standing of his family rather than to 
the importance of his guild.^ It would appear, therefore, 
that we have in the Nagar-Sheth the survival of an oflice 
which corresponds very nearly to that of an old-fashioned 
mayor, though the incumbent of the oiflce is neither ap- 
pointed by the ruling power nor elected by the people, but 
chosen on account of his social superiority from among the 
guild-Sheths to represent the dignity and power of all the 
commercial classes of the city. 

1 Compare Lely, Bombay Gazetteer, vol. ii. p. 321. 



180 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

The usual Sheth, however, is the head of a guild of 
"big men," Mahajan, and a union of all trades in a small 
town is sometimes called a Mahajan, as in Broach, where 
the " city Mahajan " includes bankers, money-changers, 
agents, brokers, cotton-dealers, and so forth, being in fact 
a sort of board of trade, or chamber of commerce, though 
it is also a protective club against artisan-guilds. For where 
there are guilds of artisans it soon becomes necessary to 
have some sort of union against them. Otherwise, on the 
slightest occasion of discontent a man of superior social 
rank would become obnoxious to great misfortune, since 
all the artisan guilds would boycott him. The only defence, 
therefore, is to be able to boycott the artisan and his guild. 
This is sometimes done, but generally, since a mutual boy- 
cott is a mutual disadvantage, the mere presence of the 
union on the part of the victims of the artisans leads to 
a more conciliatory tone, and unpleasantness is averted by 
mediation. 

The word " Panchayat " is applied in large towns to trades 
that are coterminous with castes. In Ahmedabad this would 
appear to be always the case. Mr. Lely's statement to the 
contrary, in the Gazetteer, vol. iv. p. 106, was contradicted 
by all the members of the conference, who said that the 
word " Panchayat " was used only when guild coincided with 
caste. But in other places, as in Surat, a Panchayat may 
include different castes. The same is true of the Panch 
Mahal district, only here, where the population is small, 
the general trade-regulating merchants' guild is more apt 
to be dignified with the name Mahajan, As all the small 
guilds are called Panchs in Ahmedabad, there would seem 
to have been evolved here a nicer terminology, by virtue of 
which the original application of Panchayat was more care- 
fully preserved. In respect of the wider use of Mahajan, 
which obtains in some parts of Kathiawar as a designation of 
artisan guilds (according to the statement made in his 
report by Mr. R. Proctor-Sims), the conference was unani- 
mous in saying that only when all guilds were united could 



ANCIENT AND MODERN HINDU GUILDS. 181, 

they be called, as a collective body, Mahajan ; and that no 
single artisan guild was ever so dignified. Nor have I 
personally found anywhere in Kathiawar corroboration of 
Mr. Sims' remark that tailors, blacksmiths, potters, and 
other lowly people " have each a Mahajan." ^ The Patel 
of the blacksmith guild at the conference said he did not 
believe that the title Mahajan was applied "to any single 
artisan-guild in the country," and I am inclined to think 
he was right. Another slight error in Mr. Lely's account 
is found in his statement that in Ahmedabad " there are four 
castes of carpenters and therefore four assemblies for caste 
purposes, but only one carpenters' Mahajan." The chief 
of the carpenters told me personally that he was Patel of 
a Panch, not of a Mahajan, and that the castes were not 
true castes, for they intermarry. 

On the other hand, the same caste may have subdivided 
guilds. This I found to be the case among the silversmiths. 
They all belonged to one caste, but not to one guild. But 
it sometimes happens that one guild comprises different 
castes. Thus the chief of the confectioners stated that there 
were three castes in his guild. These were real castes ; that 
is, the members of the guild were divided into groups 
which would not eat together nor intermarry. The chief 
explained this by saying that the castes were geographical. 
This is probably so. In old days, one caste was more apt to 
imply one occupation; but now strangers, with different 
habits and of different origin, unite in one occupation as they 
drift locally together. 

There is an intermediate stage in large towns between the 
great merchants' Mahajan and the humbler artisans' Panch. 
This is represented by the " pure Vania caste " goldsmith. 
The smiths of gold (and silver) are the highest Panch or the 
lowest Mahajan, depending on whether the goldsmith is at the 
same time a banker. If there are several goldsmith-bankers, 

1 Compare the Bombay Gazetteer, vol. ii. p. 321 ; vol. iii. p. 251 ; and vol. 
■viii. p. 265. 



182 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

they are called a Mahajan. But the mere artisans belong to 
a Panch, as do all lower smiths, carpenters, masons, tile- 
makers, dyers, and so forth. Of these humbler organiza- 
tions the most powerful is usually the tile-makers' guild, 
on the goodwill of which every one is dependent, and which 
controls absolutely the still humbler but important guild of 
potters. 

The number of guilds in a town differs greatly, most large 
towns having from thirty to one hundred and fifty. In the 
fifth century of our era, one of the late law-makers says there 
were eighteen guilds ; but they have evidently been increasing 
in number, as even to-day they show a marked tendency to 
multiply rather than decrease. The less important they are 
in any large city, the more there are of them. Thus the guilds 
of Jeypur have not nearly the power of those of Ahmedabad, 
which is a smaller city, but there are forty guilds in the latter 
place, while there are thrice that number in Jeypur. This is 
due rather to the splitting up of the guilds themselves than to 
the formation of new corporations. Where the guilds are in- 
fluential, they remain undivided. But when they lose the 
significance they once had, they tend to become mere clubs, 
which an irreconcilable quarrel will frequently cause to 
divide ; so that the same profession will be represented by 
two opposed factions. Even in Ahmedabad there are ten more 
guilds to-day than there were twenty years ago. 

In the country, when an outsider is opposed to the guild, 
the Panchayat will deliberate on the case and invariably settle 
it in favor of the guild, unless the outsider be rich enough to 
corrupt the Panchayat or strong enough practically to over- 
awe it. In ordinary cases the Panchayat of a village-guild 
practically forbids all competition. 

The Panch may contain different castes, but the Mahajan 
may comprise different races. Ordinarily, however, two 
guilds to a trade is the limit of expansion, as in the case of 
cloth-merchants of Ahmedabad, where workers in silk and in 
gold form two distinct guilds in the brocade trade. 



ANCIENT AND MODERN HINDU GUILDS. 183 

APPRENTICESHIP. 

The old law, to which I have referred above, seems to have 
fallen into desuetude. No articles are made out, no premium 
is paid, and in fact there is no real apprenticeship. Artisan 
boys learn their trade at home or receive small wages while 
they learn it under a master, but in no case are they bound 
out, being free to leave their own work if they (or their 
parents) think it best to do so. The old idea of an inherited 
trade is generally kept, but it is violated frequently and with 
apparent impunity. Sometimes the boy's keep is considered a 
sufficient return for his work till he has mastered his trade. 
What may appear at first sight to be apprenticeship is in 
reality a private arrangement between a father and a master- 
workman, who is asked to take charge of the boy's education, 
but he does not take the boy with legal formalities. Twenty- 
five rupees a year after the first year of training is considered 
sufficient recompense for the value of the boy's labor, and 
thereafter three rupees (one dollar) a month, till the trade is 
learned. In Jeypur, I was informed that there used to be a 
fine inflicted on any man whose son learned a new trade ; but 
no other means to prevent a change of family occupation was 
ever taken, and nowadays the old rule is not enforced. 

THE HEAD-MAN AND ELDERS. 

The Sheth, or Head-man of a guild, holds his position by 
hereditary right, which may, however, be -set aside. But the 
right is that conferred by custom and is therefore very strong. 
Only unusual circumstances would prevent a son's succession 
to his father's position as head of the guild. The dignity of 
the guild is represented by its Sheth, so that the usual rule is 
for the son to succeed, provided he is fitted to uphold the 
moral and financial standing of the family and guild. Other- 
wise he is set aside. In this case the new Sheth is elected 
from a new family, not usually from the same family, as Mr. 
Lely asserts ; who also remarks that the unworthy son " still 
retains the title," a statement denied by the conference. They 



184 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

said that a new family would in all probability be selected, 
but they admitted that the second son of an old Sheth might 
possibly get the office. 

The election is made by the whole guild and is settled by 
a majority vote. The case where a new candidate has to be 
selected appears to be rare, for the members of the conference 
were unable to say what would happen if there were more 
than one candidate, or whether there would be more than one. 
They seemed to think that only one name would ever be sub- 
mitted to the guild to vote upon, and I fancy that this is a 
fact, since the personal influence of the rich is very great, and 
they would rather settle the matter first among themselves 
and then submit the name to the whole guild pro formSi. No 
one in the conference had ever heard of two candidates being 
put forward. They said that " of course the best and biggest 
man " would be made Sheth. But indeed to have any real 
candidate is extraordinary. Ordinarily the eldest son of the 
deceased Sheth becomes Sheth with only the form of an elec- 
tion. The procedure, however, as imagined by members of 
the conference, would be as follows, in case there was need of 
a new Sheth from a new family (I cite verbatim from notes 
made on the spot) : " There would be but one candidate, for 
there can be but one best and biggest man. The most influ- 
ential men, quietly coming together, on making in their minds 
the sad discovery that the son of the Sheth was not fitted to 
inherit the dignity of his fathers, would agree upon that per- 
son who would best represent the guild, and having amicably 
agreed upon this man they would go before the guild and say, 
' Vote for this man.' " Question : " Suppose the guild refused 
to vote for him? " Answer : " The guild is sometimes opin- 
ionated in other matters, but we have never known a guild re- 
fuse to vote as its influential leaders directed it to do when the 
question was one of election." Question : " Do the venerable 
Sheths remember no such case?" Answer: "It is not re- 
membered." In short, the guilds elect as the leaders select. 

These " influential leaders " are the elders or Council of the 
guild, and they too bear the name of Sheth, but only as a 



ANCIENT AND MODERN HINDU GUILDS. 185 

decoration. There may, however, be two real Sheths, in 
which case each Sheth is originally the Sheth of his own 
caste (guild) or sect. Thus the local silk-cloth guild of 
Ahraedabad has two heads, one to represent the Shravaks and 
one to represent the Vishnuites, and in nearly all the great 
city-guilds in Gujarat the two prevailing sects are thus repre- 
sented. The sons of councillors inherit the title as a matter 
of courtesy and are often in reality the councillors of the next 
Sheth, so that the Sheth in council seem to represent an hered- 
itary body. The proverb cited by Mr. Lely, loc. cit, p. 108, 
" Energy makes the Sheth, no one asks what family he is," 
represents a theoretical possibility, and doubtless an historical 
fact, but not the present condition of affairs. 

In small country towns in Gujarat every leading merchant 
is politely called Sheth, as in Benares he is called Mahajan, 
or as in New England a country lawyer is called 'Squire. 

As a great part of the charity performed by the guild is of 
a religious character, when the Sheth is of a different sect to 
that of most members of the guild, and the latter have no 
sectarian Sheth of their own, the guild will often give over 
its charity-moneys to the Sheth of another guild of identical 
sect. Thus Shravaks with a Vishnuite Sheth will entrust 
their moneys to the Shravak Sheth of another guild, lest their 
own Vishnuite Sheth expend them for a temple rather than 
for the Shravak Pinjra Pol (asylum for decrepit animals). 
As for this, it shows how religious is the community, but it 
may be observed that the people are as conservative as they 
are religious, and though in a Shravak environment it some- 
times happens that a Vishnuite Sheth finds his guild slowly 
becoming Shravak, yet he never thinks of relinquishing his 
position on this account, nor does the Shravak majority think 
of ousting him. ^ 

1 The city Mahajans are usually made up of Lohanas and Bhatias, as well 
as Vanias, though, properly speaking, the last should include the first two. 
But Vanias in common parlance are bankers and cloth-merchants of the Shra- 
vaks, that is, laymen of the Jain faith, or trading Brahmans, such as Meshris, 
who are found in some localities ; while Lolianas are Vishnuite grain-dealers 
(the poorer sort being husbandmen), as are the Bhatias. 



186 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

AUTHORITY OF THE SHETH IN COUNCIL. 

The guilds have been growing steadily more democratic, 
and in matters other than the election of a Sheth not infre- 
quently stand out against the decision of the Sheth and 
Council. Half a dozen leading members of the trade make 
the council (though the number is not fixed), and these with 
the Sheth are recognized as guild-men apt to work for the 
interest of the whole body, so that there is no natural antago- 
nism between guild and leaders. The Sheth and Council 
are, as it were, the president and cabinet of the guild. The 
interest of one is that of all, and in ordinary circumstances 
there is a ready acquiescence on the part of the whole guild 
in any measure brought forward by the Sheth and supported 
by the Council. But occasions do arise when the whole body 
stand in conflict with their officers. The venerable men who 
" remembered " for me assured me that in the good old days 
a guild never objected to any measure proposed by the Sheth 
and Council. But in these days many wish to adopt " per- 
ilous modern methods," others think that they ought to be 
consulted, and still others " take every opportunity to object 
to authority." Only twenty years ago, as may be seen in 
Mr. Lely's report already referred to, it was possible to state 
truly that the Sheth and Council have virtually the whole 
authority. The rather unwilling admission of my informants 
(it must be remembered that they were all Sheths and Patels) 
tends to show that this is no longer the case. I was in fact 
rather mournfully assured by various members of the confer- 
ence that " a majority of ordinary members of the guild al- 
ways can, and often do, carry a measure over the heads of 
Sheths and Council." In less guild-ridden towns and cities 
I was told that Sheths were now without much power, and 
even the Sheth and Council combined had only an advisory 
function. But it was everywhere recognized that this was a 
changed condition, and that formerly the advice of the Sheth 
was practically law to the guild. 



ANCIENT AND MODERN HINDU GUILDS. 187 

OFFICIALS AND MEETINGS. 

The only officer besides the Sheth is the Gumasta or clerk, 
who in the case of the great Mahajans calls the meetings and 
acts as secretary. The title really means an agent, and the 
Gumasta acts in this capacity in so far as he is authorized to 
drum up recreant members and urge them to attend the meet- 
ings. The Gumasta, if one exists (for there is often no such 
officer), receives a salary; but no Sheth or councillor receives 
a salary or accepts any money in his official capacity, unless 
it be the Sheth of a Mahajan in a small country town, who 
may receive a fixed sum for collecting fees imposed by the 
government on his own and other local guilds. 

The duties of the clerk consist also in collecting moneys 
and keeping accounts, but he must discover and report trans- 
gressions on the part of members and " execute any order 
that may be given on the part of the corporation." To this 
description of the clerk's functions (furnished by Mr. Lely, 
loc. cit, p. 107) I am unable to add anything of importance. 

The meetings of the guild are held in the local Vadi or 
guild-hall ; the clerk calls the meeting at the request of the 
Sheth or of any other influential member of the guild or on 
the demand of ordinary members. There does not seem to 
be any regular practice in this respect. The conference said 
simply that when a meeting was wanted by any important 
person or demanded by several members there was a meeting. 
Meetings are not held at stated intervals, but as occasion pre- 
sents itself. If there is no clerk, the Sheth calls the meeting 
(when requested to do so), sending a written or verbal mes- 
sage to the different members. If there is no guild-hall, any 
convenient room, as in the house or shop of one of the mem- 
bers, is selected for the meeting. So far as I could learn, 
there is an utter absence of formality at these meetings, and 
no parliamentary rules are followed. 



188 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

MEMBERS AND FEES. 

As occupation usually goes by caste, any member of a caste 
engaged in a certain occupation is, ipso facto^ a member of the 
guild. In small towns there is often no entrance fee in arti- 
san guilds, but the Mahajans exact one from new members. 
All sons, however, of a deceased member, without paying an 
entrance fee, become members of the guild on his decease, 
and are received into the guild without formality. Member- 
ship is a family right which, once acquired, is inherited. But 
from other new members an entrance fee is demanded, which 
varies from one hundred to three hundred and fifty rupees. 
A fair average of the fees of the more important guilds is 
three hundred rupees, or about one hundred dollars. But 
the borders-guild of Ahmedabad has a fee of only two hun- 
dred rupees. Three hundred are demanded by the cloth- 
guild ; several guilds demand three hundred and fifty ; and 
even five hundred was quoted as a possible fee, but no guild 
represented at the conference admitted that its fee was so 
high as this. Some of the artisan-guilds ask a fee of one 
rupee as matter of form, but their fee is generally a dinner- 
party. The fee, though usually the same for all, may be 
partly remitted in the case of a desirable member who is too 
poor to pay the large sum demanded by some guilds. 

A discredited member may not return to the guild when 
once cast out (by vote of the guild). If his offence is a 
caste-offence his children are debarred from admission. The 
practice varies in different localities. In Jeypur, for exam- 
ple, a member is not dismissed, but he is allowed to drop out 
of the guild. Here too the sons may enter, though the father 
has been informally ostracized. When the father has dropped 
out on account of poverty, the son that has prospered and 
desires to enter the guild may do so, " not usually at once, 
but after some years." There is no rule on the subject. It is 
largely a social question. If a member changes his business, 
he of course leaves the guild, but he may be reinstated if he 
resumes it. A change of trade or business is not unusual, 



ANCIENT AND MODERN HINDU GUILDS. 189 

nor was it so in ancient times, though our notions of caste 
based on the law-books lead us to think so. As to a new 
entrance fee from reinstated members, in Ahmedabad the 
general opinion was that it was not customary to demand it. 
But in case a discredited or dropped member dies, while it is 
permitted to his sons, it is not permitted to his grandsons to 
enter without a fee. If a member fails he is not dropped 
on this account. The guild investigate his business, and if 
it is found that he has failed dishonorably, he is dropped ; 
if honorably, " the creditors in the guild accept a part of the 
debt and help him to tide over his difficulties when he repays 
all. But the funds of the guild are never used for this pur- 
pose." In this particular there is a difference between the 
guilds of ancient times (when it . is expressly stated that 
they help their needy members) and of to-day, when all the 
funds are devoted to religious charity. No Sheth of the 
conference would admit that any guild-money was ever spent 
on a member of the guild, however much he might need it. 
Nor does the guild care for the needy families of deceased 
members. 

The dinner-party fee of artisan guilds is not always the 
rule. In Broach, for instance, the bricklayers demand a 
small fee of each new member. But generally the family (or 
it may be the caste Panchayat) raises money enough to give 
a dinner to the rest of the guild. The rite constitutes the 
entrance fee, and is the only formality observed. This ap- 
plies only to those who have learned a new trade different 
from their father's, and are hence obliged to enter a new 
guild. 

In many cases there is no fee at all. Thus in Bhaunagar 
and in Jeypur, one in Gujarat and one in Rajputana, there 
is no fee. It is customary only where the guilds are most 
stringent in their rule and most conservative. There is no 
annual subscription (though Mr. Lely says there is), and con- 
sequently there are no arrears to be paid. 



190 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

FINES, KEVENUES, EXPENDITURES. 

Fines are imposed for non-observance of the rules of the 
guild. This is found to apply chiefly to the matter of holi- 
days. Every caste and guild has its stated holidays, and any 
member that keeps open shop or works on such a day is 
liable to a fine, unless he has bought the privilege. A prime 
source of revenue in the case of most guilds is the proceeds 
of the auction sale of this privilege. The fine is heavy for 
violation of this right on the part of others ; and if the offence 
is repeated, the delinquent is sometimes expelled rather 
summarily. This custom of auctioning off the right of 
not keeping a holiday is one more common in the smaller 
towns. 

Large guilds get revenue also from purchases of the mem- 
bers, on which a tax is levied. One quarter of one per cent, 
is the annual impost, but when paid in kind, as is often done, 
an approximate amount, reckoned roughly according to this 
ratio, is taken by the guild. Thus from every cart bringing 
in a load of grain, a few handfuls are taken out and cast in a 
heap at the city-gate. There is no precision ; often the cart 
does not stop at all ; the toll-man puts in his hand and takes 
out a little, not enough to make any appreciable difference in 
the load, but it adds to the slowly accumulating heap at the 
gate. The law is strict, but its observance is kept more in 
the spirit than in the letter of the per cent. It must be re- 
membered that it is all for religious charity (the funds of the 
guild are devoted to this object solely), and the exact amount 
is of small importance. I fancy, however, that the very 
precise rules in regard to king's toll in the old law-books were 
probably interpreted much in the same loose way. 

When the article taxed is not payable in kind, the tax 
assumes a more formidable appearance. In Bhaunagar there 
is such a tax (about ten cents on every bale of cotton) levied 
by the manufacturers' guild. So in Broach, the Mahajan's 
chief revenue is said to be from a similar tax on every bale. 
This is sometimes as high as a quarter of a dollar. All bills 



ANCIENT AND MODERN HINDU GUILDS. 191 

of exchange negotiated by a banker are taxed in the same 
way, the tax in this case being about ten cents. 

None of the guilds is a provident institution. Regular banks 
have done away with their old function of trust companies, 
and they usually spend their moneys at once, in the case of 
small guilds on dinner-parties, in the case of Mahajans on 
Pinjra Pols (asylums for animals) and temples. But if there 
is anything on hand, the moneys are credited to the corpora- 
tion at the local bank. The large guilds sometimes possess 
considerable real estate, which has come to them in the shape 
of gifts, and they are often the beneficiaries of rich members, 
who give to them in the knowledge that they will expend 
principal or interest (as desired) for their pet charities. 
Where there is a loose organization, as in Jeypur, without 
fees or assessments, money for charity is collected by sub- 
scription. In Surat, on the other hand, where the organiza- 
tion is perfect, fees and taxes come in so regularly that the 
members seldom give directly for any charity.^ 

I was told that on an average over fifty per cent, of the 
whole income of a guild went regularly to charity. The old 
rule was that the local Pinjra Pol of Ahmedabad, for instance, 
should receive one quarter of one per cent, on all goods pur- 
chased by any member of the guild. This rule is not now so 
strictly observed, but some guilds, as, for example, the gold- 
thread guild, still holds to this rule. Other guilds spread 
their charity over more general ground, giving part to one 
object, part to another. In some cases, again, there is no 
such tax at all. It is a matter which is decided by each guild 
for itself annually. Thus the chief confectioner said that in 
his business a tax was levied on all purchases of sugar and 
condensed milk, but the amount of the tax and the disposition 
of the moneys when collected were matters settled by the 
guild once a year. He asserted too that for the last year the 
rate had been eight annas on one hundred rupees, but this 
would be half of one per cent., and some of the other mem- 

1 Compare also the Bombay Gazetteer, vol. ii. pp. 321, 442. 



192 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

bers of the conference looked so astonished at the statement 
that I came to the conclusion he was exaggerating, to give a 
good opinion of the charitable work of his guild. In the case 
of the cloth-merchants I was told that one quarter of one per 
cent, was a fixed amount (not settled annually) deducted for 
charitable and religious purposes, and that the rest of the 
money on hand was spent for the guild " at the discretion of 
the Council." The funds are sometimes spent for semi- 
religious purposes, such as are urged as worthy charities in 
the ancient texts, — tanks, shade-trees, fountains, rest-houses, 
etc. Thus at Junagadh the goldsmiths' guild has built a 
dharmagdla ; that is, a house where pilgrims can be put up 
over night. There is a fine dharmagala at Jeypur, built in 
the same way. In small places in Gujarat all spare funds 
are usually given to Pinjra Pols by the Shravak guilds and to 
temples by the Vishnuite guilds. I was curious to know 
what happened with the funds of a mixed guild, and was told 
that " the amount for each sect is decided upon amicably by 
the council." When nothing special is required and the 
Pinjra Pol and temples are in a flourishing condition, there is 
always the outlet of a dinner-party, so that funds never accu- 
mulate. The artisan-guilds do not appear to give much in 
charity, preferring to spend their small income on an annual 
guild-picnic. I was told that in Surat the difference is most 
marked. Here all the Mahajans spend their money on charity 
and all the artisan-guilds spend theirs on picnics. Where, as 
is often the case in Kathiawar, the caste and guild are identi- 
cal, these picnics are merely family reunions. Besides the 
food, new pots and kettles and dishes are bought for each 
picnic. It is seldom, however, that artisan-guilds have any 
money to spend.^ 

1 Mr. Proctor-Sims, in the Bombay Gazetteer, vol. viii. p. 265, mentions aa 
objects of charity, feeding the poor, Pinjra Pols, dharmasgdlas, cattle-troughs, 
and water-sheds or parabs. He says that artisan-guilds usually spend all they 
get for dinners and cooking utensils. This I found to be true everywhere in 
Gujarat, but not elsewhere. But, as I have already stated, the Sheths at the 
conference said that they never gave guild-money to the poor for food or for 
anything else, save as the poor benefited by the erection of fountains, etc. 



ANCIENT AND MODERN HINDU GUILDS. 193 

JURISDICTION OF THE GUILDS. 

To fix trade-holidays, to enforce their observance, and to 
collect and administer the funds of the guilds, are functions 
to which I have already referred. The right to arbitrate is 
assumed by all guilds. When a trade quarrel is referred to a 
Mahajan, or when the Mahajan, without being requested, 
decides a quarrel, this is the final arbitrament. Refusal to 
abide by it or indeed to carry out any decision arrived at (as 
in the case of payments thus adjudicated) results in ostracism. 
When a member is thus cut off from the guild he may be 
ostracized by the caste. In the latter case he becomes a social 
pariah, more wretched than a village dog. But even if one is 
only cast out of the guild, one is often, *pso/acto, outcasted. 
In the country, such an outlaw is debarred from all social 
recognition. No man will work with him or for him, nor will 
any one employ him. In the cities, no dealer will serve him, 
no broker will act for him, no servant will remain in his 
house. The carpenter, the baker, the confectioner, the black- 
smith, the tile-maker, the very potter, lowest of the lowly, 
refuse to take his orders, deliver goods to him, or perform any 
service for him at any price. Caste here has yielded entirely 
to the guild. The rule established by a low-caste corporation 
may involve such ostracism in the case of the highest caste, 
but it is enforced regardless of caste. A typical instance is 
cited by Mr. Proctor-Sims. In 1878, in a small town in 
Kathiawar, the Vania Mahajan levied a religious tax which 
the traders of the Brahman caste refused to pay. The Vania 
guild, therefore, boycotted the Brahman traders and forbade 
all dealings with them, till the high-caste traders yielded and 
paid the tax. 

In small places, the Mahajan is thus absolute master of the 
town. No individual can stand against his local guild ; nor 
where there are several small guilds which form a Mahajan 
can a whole guild resist the union. Owing to the number of 
traders and workmen in large towns who do not belong to 
guilds, the power there is not so great, but it is generally 

13 



194 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

coercive. Thus in Ahmedabad, as I was told, a banker who 
had half his house tiled got into a quarrel with a confectioner 
and could not get the other half of his house tiled till the 
sweetmeat-guild had told the tile-guild that it might resume 
work for the representative of the bankers' guild. 

The artisan-guilds are practically more powerful in this way 
than are the more aristocratic Mahajans of large cities. For 
there are a dozen cases where the artisans are able to mar the 
serenity of a banker's life against one where the banker 
would be apt to exercise power over the artisan. The whole 
Ahmedabad conference stated publicly (and different members 
of the conference assured me privately after the meeting was 
over) that despite the annoyance, this was " all for the public 
good." Even the victims regard themselves as martyrs in a 
good cause, and think themselves protected where they are 
tyrannized over. 

I submitted the following questions to the conference in re- 
gard to other matters of jurisdiction : In the case of disburse- 
ment of funds, if the guild objects to expenditures proposed by 
the Sheth and Council, what action is taken ? Does the guild 
alter prices and the rates of wages ? Does it decide what shall 
be the number of working-hours ? Does it prohibit or give 
formal sanction to improvements ? 

In answer to the first question, I was told that " there would 
probably be no such objection ; but if there were, the Sheth 
would talk with the members of the guild and induce them 
to change their opinion, or there would be an amicable com- 
promise." The chief question would be whether Shravak 
funds should all go for Shravak charities. In Ahmedabad 
itself a normal proportion is observed between Shravak and 
Vishnuite expenditures, but the exclusive use of sectarian 
funds for sectarian purposes is not countenanced. In other 
towns, particularly smaller towns, the latter is the rule. 

In regard to prices, I was informed that in Mahajans they 
were regulated only in the grain-guild. In cloth-guilds, for in- 
stance, two men of the same guild may sit side by side in the 
bazaar and sell the same kind of cloth at different prices. But 



ANCIENT AND MODERN HINDU GUILDS. 195 

wages are fixed by the guild, though in places where modern 
manufactories are found, wages are regulated to a great extent 
by the action of the factory-owners, who are usually not mem- 
bers of a guild. Both in Gujarat and in Rajputana, the mill- 
owners operate against the guilds as a general thing, though 
they are sometimes guild-men. 

The method of fixing the rate of wages and keeping it there 
without protest is very simple. It is the practice to advance 
a certain sum to every workman at the beginning of his term 
of service. As his wages give him just enough to live on, he 
can never save enough to repay the loan, or if he could he is 
usually so improvident that he does not do so. If he asks for 
more wages, his employer refuses the request. If he says he 
will leave unless he gets more, the employer replies, " Very 
well ; but first pay me what you owe." The result is that the 
man remains at the old wage. When an employer wants to 
pay extra wages to induce a special workman to enter his em- 
ploy, the employer "must ask the guild about it and abide by 
their decision." 

In a Panch, price and wages are ordinarily fixed by the 
guild and also the number of working-hours. On these points 
the guilds act in combination and especially combine against 
outside competition. " The lowest rate allowed by the local 
guild " may not be altered, flf outsiders come in and work for 
less than this, it is the duty of the members of guilds on which 
the workmen are dependent to refuse either to work for them 
or to supply them with the means of their trade. Thus if a 
confectioner should sell sugar-cakes at less than the permitted 
rate, the guild that supplied him with sugar would cease to 
do so ; if a tile-maker should work for less wage, the guild 
supplying his material would boycott him, etc. So in regard 
to working over-hours ; though here there is this license, that 
if a man wishes to work over-time the guild will not ordina- 
rily object, provided there is enough work for all to do. But 
otherwise the rule is very strict. When work is scarce, a fine 
is imposed by the guild on any one that works more than the 
permitted time. 



196 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

Incidentally I inquired at this point whether the guilds 
took cognizance of disputes between employer and employed 
when the former alleged unsatisfactory work as a reason for 
dismissing the workmen employed. I was told that the guild 
" took action in regard to every grievance and had jurisdiction 
over everything," A case " remembered " was as follows : 
4 Some years ago I (a merchant Sheth) discharged a carpenter 
who did unsatisfactory work. The carpenter-guild refused to 
let any workman work on the house till the incompetent car- 
penter was taken back." I then asked the Sheth whether he 
considered guilds in general to be advantageous or disadvan- 
tageous to the common weal. " They are very advantageous," 
he replied, " though their action is sometimes open to criticism. 
In this case I was the sufferer, but the carpenters acted for their 
own best interests, and they cannot be severely blamed." 

The conference denied that the guilds ever exerted them- 
selves actively against modern improvements, A case cited 
from the beginning of the century (1820, Dunlap, apud Lely, 
p. Ill) indicates the spirit of opposition that used to obtain ; 
but though a certain unfriendliness to modern methods was per- 
haps to be suspected from casual remarks of some of the older 
members of the conference, I was unable to elicit more than a 
general statement to the effect that " guilds never object to 
improvements, but are the first to sanction them," which is 
doubtless true when the word " improvements " is defined as 
it was meant, and may perhaps be a correct statement in any 
circumstances. 

(As the guild controls the output of energy in the workman, 
so it controls the output of the merchant's wares. Whether 
goods might be sold out of town was a question which the 
guilds of Jeypur refused to answer (in view of the famine), 
but in Ahmedabad the grain-dealers decided it the day before 
the conference, determining that no grain might be sold out 
of town. At the same time they raised the price of the chief 
staple by ordering that only sixteen pounds instead of twenty- 
four pounds should be sold for a rupee. I may add that, though 
the general government refuses to regulate trade, it does not 



ANCIENT AND MODERN HINDU GUILDS. 197 

prohibit such regulation on the part of the guilds or on the 
part of local governments. In extra-British territory it is 
customary. Thus the Nizam of Hyderabad regulated the out- 
put of grain during the famine. 

Rates of exchange and insurance (in the case of Mahajans), 
and rates of sale and amount of marketable material which 
may be made by each artisan, are always settled in advance by 
the respective guilds. 

Despite the fact that the jurisdiction of a guild generally 
extends over members of other guilds, by virtue of the mutual 
support given by all such organizations, it not infrequently 
happens that the guilds quarrel among themselves. There is 
then no power to adjust the difference, and a battle of guilds is 
fought out, usually by manoeuvres rather than by force. A case 
on record in one of the small towns of Kathiawar is as follows : 
I^A sweeper, having been insulted by a merchant, got his guild 
to refuse to sweep for the member of the local Mahajan. The 
Mahajan promptly got the grain-dealers to refuse to sell grain 
to the sweepers. When starved out, the sweepers swept again. 
In another town, the Mahajan objected to the action of the 
potters, who had raised the price of pots. The potters stood 
firm and seemed likely to win, till the Mahajan bought the 
right to dig clay in the village lands. They then had the 
potters at their mercy, and the price of pots resumed its 
old level. 

When the Mahajan is not identical with the village Pan- 
chayat, elders of the village, the power is divided, and in this 
case it is doubtful which party will win the war of tricks. 
But in most villages the Panchayat consists of members of the 
Mahajan, when its power is quite absolute. Thus in one town 
in the north of Kathiawar, the Panchayat, thinking that chol- 
era, which had broken out, was caused by witchcraft, deter- 
mined to burn all the houses where the magic influence had 
shown itself. The owners of the houses never thought of re- 
sisting the order, and the whole plague-district was burned up, 
without compensation to the owners, at the command of the 
Panchayat. 



198 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

SATTAS. 

Sattas are time-bargains in the grain-market, corresponding 
to our " futures." The grain guild takes cognizance of these 
bargains and arbitrates in all disputes arising from them 
between members. The price of grain is regulated daily by 
the guild, and the assumed value of grain on a given day is 
fixed in the interest of time-bargains or stock -gambling. 

There is another mode of gambling, very popular in north- 
ern India, known as Kabalas, or rain-bargains, but these are 
not recognized by any guild. They are simply a method of 
betting on the time when rain will fall, " real rain" being es- 
timated by a continuous flow from a certain house-gutter, 
which a watchman is stationed to watch. These bets are 
regularly entered, but they are regarded as private affairs like 
any gambling bets, and failure to pay such a bet is not offi- 
cially recognized.^ 

GUILDS AS COURTS OF LAW. 

It will have been observed that the jurisdiction of the 
guilds relieves the local courts of a good deal of business. 
Disputes which in the Occident would be settled by a legal 
appeal are in the land of guilds settled by the societies of the 
disputants. In small towns, the Mahajan is usually the ac- 
cepted referee in all petty disputes. In cities, on the other 
hand, trade disputes are often brought into court only to be 
referred back by the court to the Mahajan for settlement. 
This, I was told, is frequently the case in Jeypur and in 
other cities under native rule. 

Small guilds, again, are in the habit of appealing to the 
great guilds, Mahajans, when the former quarrel among 
themselves. This is particularly true in small places, where 

1 The Kabalas stand to the Hindu in the place of card-debts or racing- 
debts, and are so important a vice that in 1897 the government sought to stop 
them by law. To this the Hindus of Calcutta retorted that so long as the 
British were allowed to bet on horses, they would claim the right to bet on rain, 
and I believe the matter was not pressed. There is a description of this fasci- 
nating excitement in the Bombay Gazetteer, vol. viii. p. 209. 



ANCIENT AND MODERN HINDU GUILDS. 199 

the grain-dealers, grocery-dealers, and tobacco-dealers {i. e.y 
the usual Mahajan) stand in social antithesis to the guilds of 
the petty dealers and common workmen, representing an edu- 
cated intelligence to which the lowly guilds of the unedu- 
cated can and do appeal for arbitration. As far as 1 could 
learn, the matters thus brought before the Mahajans are 
settled fairly and satisfactorily, and there is seldom any com- 
plaint of injustice. Custom gives force to this, arbitrament, 
and appeal is rarely taken from a decision of the Mahajan. 
Occasionally, but not often, disputants engage their respective 
guilds in a dispute without interesting the guilds in it. In 
such a case, instead of referring to the Mahajan the nominally 
opposed guilds will appoint a council or committee to settle 
the dispute. In a small village where there is no Mahajan, 
the Patel is the referee in disputes among members of any 
artisan guild.^ 

POWER OF THE GUILDS. 

The power of the guilds is rapidly declining. At present 
their ancient control, which it is evident was exercised not 
only two thousand years ago, but until very recently, is pre- 
served only in a few places. In Gujarat the guilds are at 
their strongest, and are best represented in the city of 
Ahmedabad ; in Rajputana the power of the guilds is much 
less than in Gujarat, and in some of the cities of this district 
is almost nominal. Jeypur is an example of the intermediate 
position of the guilds, where they still exist, but do not exer- 
cise the powers they have in Gujarat; while Oodeypur, 
another citj'- of Rajputana, shows a still weaker organization, 
for there is here no attempt to regulate trade or wages, and 
the nomenclature is changing to the purely conventional use 
of Mahajan (as the title of an individual), such as is found in 
the eastern districts. In Ajmere, which is not a native state, 
there is practically no guild-power, and the terms Sheth and 
Mahajan have only a social meaning. 

1 Compare Mr. Little's account of the Panoh Mahals in the third volume of 
the Bombay Gazetteer, p. 251. His remarks in regard to the referee may be 
generalized. 



200 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

Southwards, the guilds have a sort of loose existence 
among artisans and the lowest workmen of Bombay, but the 
modern emporia, Bombay and Calcutta, have grown up under 
influences foreign to the cultivation of guilds, and the latter 
have in these cities the appearance of weak exotics. During 
the plague some of these Bombay workmen's guilds made a 
stand against certain sanitary regulations, but they could not 
maintain it. In Poona there are no Mahajans, and even the 
Nagar Sheth, who used to be a power there, exists no longer. 
There is here a sort of Panch or committee of all trades. 
This now takes the place of the council of chiefs, which used 
to be influential. In case of need of conference or mutual 
support the different trades confer informally and may unite 
in combined action, but there is no real organization of 
guilds. This seems to be about the southern boundary of 
the guild-system, as Benares, where Mahajan simply means 
" banker " and the guilds are only loose associations, is the 
eastern limit. 

In the Punjab the country villages are almost guildless. 
There is, to be sure, on extraordinary occasions, a sort of 
union of people interested in business, such as a mutual agree- 
ment to close shops as a sign of popular discontent, or some 
such concert of action for a definite cause, but there is no 
constant union. The only approach to the dignity of Sheth 
and Mahajan ^ is an agreement on the part of grain-dealers in 
regard to prices. Similar agreements are sometimes made by 
other business men acting as a temporary body, but not as a 
legal corporation. The only officer in the lower grades of 
work is the semi-governmental Chaudhari or Head-man. But 
this Head-man's office is merely to act as spokesman for men 
of his class and be their agent in dealing with the government, 
especially in arranging service which they have to perform, 

1 The word " Mahajan " is here synonymous with (any) Vania. It is inter- 
esting to see that the name of the third caste is still retained in the Punjab, 
where Vania interchanges not only with Mahajan, but also with Wesh, i. e. 
■Vai9ya, the old name for merchant (and farmer). — Census Report, 1891, i. p. 
291. 



ANCIENT AND MODERN HINDU GUILDS. 201 

settling the terms of a contract, etc. As an agent, he may- 
retain a percentage out of the pay of the men who do the 
work for the government. Thus the shuturban or camel-driv- 
ers, cartmen, dhooly-bearers, and such workmen, all have a 
Chaudhari, who in some respects seems like the Patel of a 
guild, but he is really only a Muccadum, head-man or boss- 
workman. There is of course a Panchayat, but that is con- 
cerned only with caste-matters, and the term is not used of 
guilds as it is in Gujarat. 

Eastwards, in the Delhi district (now called Punjab), 
there is more guild-organization, but without solidarity. A 
sort of caste of rich merchants is all that the Mahajans 
amount to in the Northwest Provinces generally, but only 
from Delhi to Lucknow has the word its western meaning. 
Still further east in the Northwest Provinces, and along the 
eastern Ganges, the name has only its literal signification. 
The artisan-guilds of the Northwest Provinces either have 
not developed fully or are a weak imitation of Gujarat models. 
A third possibility may be, however, that they have lost power 
which they used to possess. In Oudh they were formerly 
powerful, but now they are often nothing but castes. In some 
cases the guilds have actually become castes, just as castes 
have become guilds. For occupation has produced caste, not, 
as is sometimes claimed, as the only root of the institution, but 
as one factor in the upbuilding of that conglomerate structure. 
The word Nyat or caste Q'dti) is in fact sometimes applied to 
those lower artisan guilds, which as a collective group stand 
opposed to the union of Vanias and Brahmans (Mahajans). 
This is true of all districts. Thus in the Kadi division, North 
Baroda, there is often no distinction between guild and caste 
in the case of Nyats, which are practically dependent on the 
Mahajan. The latter directs and commands the Nyats and 
admits to its consultation only the latter's Patels. Here the 
real guild has shown its power over the pseudo-guild of the 
caste.^ 

1 On these points compare further the Gazetteer of the N.W. Provinces, vol. 
V. pp. 47, 582 ; and the Bombay Gazetteer, vol. vii. p. 160 ; vol. xviii. p. 173. In 
some cases the Mahajan even fixes the wages of the Nyat workmen. 



202 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

STRIKES. 

The guilds often go on a strike. One of the latest cases 
was in the spring of 1897, when the holalkhores^ or cleaners, 
of Bombay refused to work and " went out " in a body. 
Wages and working-hours are not often the cause of strikes, 
but religious differences and fancied injuries to feelings. 
Refusal of government to give redress when a guild considers 
itself wronged in respect of taxation sometimes precipitates a 
strike. A few years ago the hand-loom weavers of Ahmeda- 
bad struck on a mixed complaint and were largely replaced 
by boys. In general, lads are employed to a much greater 
extent than with us, partly on account of the smaller wage 
given to boys, and partly because they are less apt to give 
trouble. One of the largest carpet-manufactories in Ahmeda- 
bad employs boys altogether with the exception of two grown 
men. 

Religious differences have caused strikes in Kathiawar 
within the last few years, as has been recorded by Mr. Proctor- 
Sims. Thus in 1845, the Vanias of Gondal could get no 
redress for the insult offered to their Hindu feelings by the 
Mohammedan butchers, who sold meat openly, and they were 
driven to shut up shop ; which compelled the government to 
pass a rule that all butchers should kill secretly and sell be- 
hind a screen, — a provision now usually observed everywhere. 
On the other hand, twelve years later the Vanias of Dhoraji 
wounded the religious feelings of the Mohammedans. The 
latter killed a few Vanias, and the state in turn punished the 
Mohammedan ringleaders. The malcontents struck work in 
a body and some of them left the town ; but their strike failed, 
as the government, taking the side of the Vanias, ordered all 
Mohammedans to leave the place. This was too much for the 
latter, and a reconciliation took place. In 1881 a«sacred cow 
was wounded by some Voharas, and as nothing was done 
about it, the Hindu Vanias, whose feelings had been outraged, 
struck for three days and thus forced the offender to be im- 
prisoned. The year before this, the barbers of Wadhwan 



ANCIENT AND MODERN HINDU GUILDS. 203 

struck — a rare event — for higher wages. But this strike 
failed because the general public {i. e., all the other guilds) 
opposed the demand. To prevent a fall of wages a strike has 
sometimes been ordered by the councils of guilds (acting 
together). A case of this kind is reported by Mr. Little in 
the Panch Mahals,^ but such a motive appears to be very 
unusual. In such instances the guilds form a true trade- 
union. Strikes of a semi-religious nature, as, for instance, 
against the execution of sanitary measures regarded as re- 
ligiously offensive, are not uncommon. But, as sanitary 
measures are instituted only by the British, when the offi- 
cials are not deterred by threats such strikes usually fail. 

THE GUILD AND THE STATE. 

It is clear from the passage on guilds, cited above from the 
Sanskrit epic, that in ancient times there was a mutual sup- 
port of state and guild. The strict advice to the king not to 
provoke, but to conciliate the guilds, the steady increase of 
power which is portrayed in the later as compared with the 
earlier law-books and is based on the yielding of the state to 
the demand of the guilds for self-government, — all these 
items of growth are shown to us in the extant literature, but 
the connection between state officials and the guilds is left to 
the imagination or to a posteriori reasoning. Judging, how- 
ever, from what has continually happened during this century, 
that relation cannot be very doubtful. Reciprocal protection 
has doubtless always figured largely as a factor in the mainte- 
nance of the power of the guilds. In plain English I mean a 
" deal," but the opprobrium attaching to this word is wanting 
when the synonym is employed, and there is in fact no Ori- 
ental prejudice which would suggest immorality. A state 
official does what he can to strengthen the hands of a rich city 
corporation. The corporation, on the other hand, would not 
be so ungrateful as to neglect the official's interest. The guild 
may intrigue for him. Or it may be a trifle ; he wants some 

1 Bombay Gazetteer, vol. iii. p. 251. 



204 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

clofh dyed. The guild sees that it is done and charges noth- 
ing. Mr. Lely, loc. cit., p. 107, cites cases of this sort which oc- 
curred not many years ago. Of course, no such practices are 
known to-day. The conference, when asked in regard to re- 
ciprocal protection, said that it was all a thing of the past. In 
the old days " a favor for a favor " was usual ; nowadays favors 
were neither asked nor given. The only relation existing be- 
tween state and guild is to-day a union of guilds (into a sort of 
trades-union) to protest against taxes regarded as too heavy. 
The local authorities sometimes help out the guilds in this 
matter, but there is "no bribery." The first part of this 
statement agrees with what Mr. Proctor-Sims says in the re- 
port already cited; the last part may be accepted on the 
evidence of the honorable Sheths who give it. The only 
state support at present consists in fees to a local Sheth for 
collecting trade taxes. 

In manufacturing centres where modern mills are in opera- 
tion, there is often but a faint reflection of old conditions, 
even in Gujarat. In Ahmedabad the mills have influenced 
the guilds, but the latter are still vigorous. In Bhaunagar, 
however, a model city of Gujarat, in the heart of the old 
guild district, there are mills owned by a Hindu whose work- 
men are mainly Mohammedans, and there is no guild in the 
old sense, though the term " Mahajan " is employed. But the 
intercourse between master and men is one of a personal rather 
than of a corporate nature. There is a Sheth, but the office 
is not hereditary. 

This breaking up of old conditions is seen in many aspects 
of contemporary life, notably in the efface ment of the lines 
of sect and caste. I met a gentleman in Oodeypur who told 
me that he was a Kshatriya and a Vaigya, a Vishnuite and a 
Jain. He was of Rajput descent, but a Vania merchant, a 
Vishnuite by sect, but a Shravak by descent, as his father 
had been converted to Jainism. He regarded himself as a 
member of both religious bodies and of both castes. Odd as 
is this combination, I am not sure that it would not have 
been possible, even in the ancient world. We know that 



ANCIENT AND MODERN HINDU GUILDS. 205 

there were many who were practically adherents of two re- 
ligious sects at once, and we need go no further than the 
great epic to find distressed Kshatriyas, or members of the 
warrior-caste, who were at the same time goldsmiths by pro- 
fession. The latter have always regarded themselves as 
Vaigyas, or members of the third caste. In epic phraseology, 
these distressed Rajputs were Kshatriyas by their social order, 
varna, but goldsmiths by their jclti, the word for caste profes- 
sion.^ 

It is probable that the time when the guilds can be looked 
upon as economically useful has passed by. But if we review 
their history we must, I think, see in them an important 
factor in the development of mercantile interests at a time 
when such a combination as they represented was indispen- 
sable to the advancement of the middle classes in their struggle 
for recognition at the hands both of despotic kings and of an 
organized priesthood that was bent on suppressing the eleva- 
tion of the third estate. With the growth of the guilds the 
new axiom of later law was evolved, whereby the king was 
advised not to oppress the guilds and not to tax too heavily. 
So commerce in the modern sense became possible. 

In conclusion, I wish to record my best thanks to Sheth 
Lalbhai Dalpatbhai, the enlightened Sheth of the Shravaks of 
Ahmedabad, for the very kind efforts made by him in my be- 
half. It is owing largely to him that I have been able to 
gather at first hand the material which has made this study 
seem worthy of publication. As the record from living wit- 
nesses of the workings of an institution more than two 
thousand years old, it may, perhaps, be of interest. 

^ Mbh., xii. 49, 84 : ete ksatriyaddydddh . . . hemakdrddijdtim nityafn samd- 
gritdh. The jdti here is the modern Nyat. Nowadays, as stated above, p. 177, 
goldsmiths claim only Vania descent. 



LAND-TENURE IN INDIA. 

Since the days of Sir Henry Maine the glory of the Hindu 
village-community has wellnigh departed. Till a decade 
ago it was still taught that the " primitive Aryan," an individ- 
ual with whom we are less familiar now than formerly, held 
only a partner's right of possession in his native soil. Com- 
munal ownership of land was at that time believed by most 
scholars to have been an Aryan institution, common to the 
primitive German and Hindu alike. 

It was, therefore, with the feeling of being very heretical 
that I ventured, on the basis of a merely literary acquaintance 
with the social conditions of ancient India, to state in 1888 
that " practically the ownership of land is vested in each he- 
reditary occupant ; his right is secured by title ; " ^ and to say 
that there was need of a fresh investigation of Indian village- 
communities and Hindu land-tenure.^ At that time I did not 
know that Mr. Baden-Powell's wide researches into present 
conditions had concentrated themselves upon this very prob- 
lem and were leading him to the same general conclusion, 
which he afterwards established more firmly in the recasting 
of his material. In The Indian Village Community (1896) 
the perfected theories of the author of Land Systems (1892) 
are explained at length. These are the more valuable as they 
were propounded solely from the point of view of the prac- 
tical observer of things as they are. That from these two 
quite different points of view has been drawn substantially 
the same result is surely an argument in favor of its probable 
correctness. 

In his last work, Village Communities in India, published 
in 1899, just before his death, Mr. Baden-Powell gave a popu- 

1 Journal of the American Oriental Society vol. xiii. p. 88. 

2 lUd., p. 57. 



LAND-TENURE IN INDIA. 207 

lar exposition of his theory (which may now be called the 
accepted theory) of the origin of the different systems of 
land-tenure in India. Some points were here slightly modi- 
fied, as compared with earlier statements respecting historical 
conditions, but in the main this work repeated what had been 
said in the previous volumes. 

Sir Henry Maine died in the same year that my article was 
published; and, strangely enough, no follower of his ever 
undertook to see whether his views were corroborated by the 
monuments of antiquity. The outline here drawn attempts 
to give the growth and change of land-tenure as these are 
shown in the literature of Aryan India, from the earliest 
Vedic period to about 500 A. d. It may be regarded as a 
sort of historical introduction to the vast array of facts col- 
lected by Mr. Baden-Powell, whose unrivalled presentation 
of modern conditions still lacks the perspective given by the 
literary evidence of the past.^ In regard to some points I 
shall be obliged to differ from the views expressed in Mr. 
Baden-Powell's monographs, but these do not affect the gen- 
eral propositions he upholds. On the contrary, to my think- 
ing, the chief contention, that the early Vedic Aryans were 
not grouped in village communities (using this word in its 
strict sense), is irrefragable. 

I would say one word more before beginning this sketch. 
Writers on economic conditions in India are still prone to cite 
from the " early law " of the Hindus ; and unfortunately, to 
many who know other things well but Sanskrit only by repu- 
tation, " early law " is synonymous with the law-book of 
Manu. Now, Manu may be cited with discretion, but not at 
haphazard as an authority on early law ; for he stands to early 
law much in the relative position of Justinian, where the old 
may be found, but where not all that is found is old. Before 
Manu there are a number of earlier law-writers known as 
authors of law-manuals, Sutras (sutras, threads of discourse, 

1 For the legal data may be consulted Professor Jolly's excellent little 
book Recht und Sitte, the compass of which, however, prevents detailed analy- 
sis of theories of land-tenure. 



208 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

concise treatises). Behind these, again, lie all the (informal) 
legal provisions of the Brahmana age, and back even of these, 
the Vedic hymns. It will readily be seen, therefore, that Manu 
is not synonymous with primitive or even very early Aryan. 
What is found in Manu may be as old as the Vedas or older, 
but on the other hand it may be as late as 200 B. c. 

No very definite statements in regard to land-tenure can be 
gathered from the earliest literature. The Vedic hymns, the 
oldest literary monument, show that different tribes at different 
periods are involved in any data that may be collected. At one 
time a poet speaks of his people as advancing " from a far land," 
searching for " pasturage and water ; " at another, a singer is 
interested mainly in agriculture, and prays for rain and a good 
harvest. The people were in part nomadic : all together they 
sought fresh lands ; " give us wide pastures " was their cry. 
But only an occasional prayer for meadow-land to be bestowed 
on one worshipper would lead us to lay stress on this poetic 
phraseology. The contrast is there, — on the one hand, be- 
tween the sole petitioner and the cry of land for all ; on the 
other, between the grazing and agricultural population, — but 
only the latter antithesis is pronounced. Taken as a whole, 
the stage represented is that of a people devoted to cattle 
rather than to the plough, and before the time when agricul- 
tural life prevailed there was probably little question as to 
land-ownership. This stage was reached, however, in the Rig 
Veda, though in the whole of this work there are less than a 
dozen references to ploughing, while those to grazing are in- 
numerable. Landed property is gained by conquest, and the 
" winning of fields " or " conquest of fields " is recognized as the 
usual aim of battle — as much so as " the conquest of cattle." 
The booty of such conquests, as is expressly hinted, was dis- 
tributed by shares. At a coronation the prayer is : " Grant 
him, the king, a share in village, horses, and cattle." But 
the king distributes, as is said in another hymn : " From the 
height of sovereignty do thou, terrible one, give us a share 
in goods." Private ownership in land is plainly expressed, 
not so much by the image of the gods measuring time with 



LAND-TENURE IN INDIA. 209 

[their] staff "like afield" (which Mr. Baden-Powell trans- 
lated incorrectly, through the medium of a German version, 
as " a man measures a field with a staff of reed "), as by other 
passages where ownership is really implied. Thus, a young 
woman prays that something may grow on her father's head 
and on [his] plough-land ; and a gambler cries that a god has 
warned him to go and plough the plough-land for a living 
instead of playing with dice, which leads only to regret as he 
looks on the happy homes of others. The implication seems 
to be, in the very few pertinent passages, that the plougher 
owns his field as he does his plough; but there is really 
nothing in these hymns, which are mainly part of a divine 
service, to establish this with certainty. 

The "heads of families," casually mentioned as grouped 
around the "active lord of the host," may possibly imply joint 
families ; but the evidence for this is also very vague. On 
the other hand, there is direct evidence, as I shall show below, 
that a joint family in the legal sense was not recognized; 
but that the indications of separate ownership of fields in the 
Rig Veda are substantiated by a passage in the Atharva Veda, 
where a man prays the god to bless " his men, his cattle, his 
horses, and his field." Separate houses are of course to be 
assumed, but they are also implicitly established. The kings 
give to their priests great gifts of thousands of cattle, not as 
part of a common possession, but as their individual property 
to be driven off to their own home. But the great owner 
of property, the "wealth's wealth-lord and people's people- 
lord," as the Atharva Veda calls him, is the king. This 
wealth he wins " from foe and friend ; " but there is nothing 
at this period to indicate indubitably in whom is vested the 
ultimate ownership of land. The people are taxed, — that is, 
they give requisite offerings, — but long before the close of 
the Vedic period the tax is obligatory. 

The domestic priest of the king was the first, as far as the 
records show, to be the recipient of a gift of land from the 
king. In one of the earliest Brahmanas, the first prose 
literature, the king is directed to give this priest " a field ; " 



210 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

but we shall look in vain through the still earlier literature 
of the hymns for any such donation. In the Vedic hymns, 
cattle, horses, slaves, clothes, and jewels are given in pro- 
fusion, but nowhere is there any mention of a gift of land. 
When thus given, however, in the second period, the land 
may not be alienated. Even if the king at another time 
should give all his land to another priest, that piece which 
he has formerly given to the first priest is not included 
in the later donation. The prototype of those extraordinary 
gifts (so frequently mentioned in later literature), whereby 
a king gives all his land to a priest, is found in the Brah- 
manas. As Mr. Baden-Powell seems to have thought that 
all such stories are late, — and, in fact, he seems to have 
known only of the latest, — it is well to remember that, 
so far as such stories affect the question of land-tenure, 
they are really a product, not of a late age, but of the 
Vedic period in its second stage. Such gifts in that 
age are, however, rare as compared with the succeeding 
period. Gifts of whole villages are recorded in the earliest 
Upanishad and legal literature. 

A general view of the intermediate age, represented by 
the later Vedas and the Brahmanas, shows that, when a 
king with the help of an ally conquers a third king, he 
*' goes shares " in the booty with his ally ; that the country 
is governed by the sovereign through local officers ; that 
the grdmam or " leader of a host " of the earlier period 
has now become a "village head-man; " and that the king 
bestows land for a place of sacrifice only when he has been 
"begged" for it by the priests. 

A question arises at this point; and it is perhaps the 
one that Mr. Baden-Powell, from an historical point of view, 
answered most unsatisfactorily, when he claimed that the 
Aryan Vai9ya was an agriculturist only incidentally and 
chiefly by proxy, being really a trader. He based this view 
on the fact that in Manu's (late) law-book the Vaigya seems 
to be principally occupied with trade. In the course of 
his argument he was here led to make one or two statements 



LAND-TENURE IN INDIA. 211 

of fact, the truth of which cannot be determined upon the 
slender evidence adduced, and which a closer acquaintance 
with Sanskrit literature would probably have modified. 

The subject is really of prime importance, owing to the use 
to which Mr. Baden-Powell put his results. He drew from 
it the conclusion "that the upper classes of Aryan origin 
had little feeling for agriculture, and that India does not 
owe to them either the introduction of settled cultivation 
or (directly) any particular policy or principle of land owner- 
ship."! Mr. Baden-Powell was of the opinion that agri- 
culture was performed only by the humblest classes of 
Aryans, scarcely differentiated from the original inhabitants, 
and was much surprised that he could not find, in accordance 
with his theory, any mention of the ^udra (slave, gudra) 
as an agriculturist. 

This is rather a startling statement, in view of the fact 
that, as I have already mentioned, agricultural labor is 
alluded to in the very earliest Aryan literature. In the 
Brahmana literature also, although one does not expect 
to find many allusions to agriculture in books devoted to 
the exposition of a sacrificial liturgy, ploughing is very 
often mentioned and the processes of the year's work in 
the plough-land are all described. Then turning to the 
Sutras, or earliest manuals of law, some of them much 
older than Manu, we find, not only constant allusion to 
agriculture, but plain evidence of the fact that Vaigyas were 
particularly agriculturists, and that members of the warrior 
caste and of the priest caste were very apt to adopt the 
same occupation. It was therefore a grave slip to say, as 
did Mr. Baden-Powell : " Whatever be the true date of 
the Laws of Manu, we have no earlier literary mention of 
agriculture, after the Vedic Hymns," ^ and I am glad to 
see that in his latest volume he accepted the corrections 
which I made as regards this point,^ and so modified it 

1 The Indian Village Community, p. 192. 2 jjj{a,^ p, jgo. 

3 In an article in the Political Science Quarterly, December, 1898. The 
present essay has, of course, been modified accordingly. 



212 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

as to extract from it all its force. " I meant only " (he says) 
" that non- Aryan races had established villages for agricul- 
tural life before the Aryans, and that the latter furnished the 
element of over-lordship and manorial growth" (Ind. Vill. 
Comm. p. 54). In this new statement Mr. Baden-Powell is 
doubtless right, as he adds unequivocally, " The lower ranks 
of Aryans practised agriculture." But, as a matter of fact, 
we can trace almost step by step through the Sutras the 
gradual change from cowboy and agriculturist to trader 
in the case of the Vaigya. Long before Manu's law-book 
was known, had arisen the famous ahinsd doctrine of non- 
injury to living creatures ; and the objection to agriculture 
on the part of the priest is based expressly on this ground 
in the law-books. But, as to-day and in the last century 
in Rajputana, so in ancient times, recourse to agriculture 
was the first thought on the part of the upper castes, and 
agriculture was the usual occupation of the third estate. 
It is true that the upper castes had no "feeling" for agri- 
culture, but noblemen and priests, as a general thing, have 
feeling neither for agriculture nor for trade. In India the 
VaiQya was first a tender of cattle ; then from the Vedic 
period onwards an agriculturist or cattle-man; and, lastly, 
by preference a trader. But, on the other hand, traders 
existed in the Vedic age, so that the very gradual change 
of occupation of the caste as a whole is the more remark- 
able if Mr. Baden-Powell's view was correct. There is, 
again, another factor ignored in Mr. Baden-Powell's work. 
" Vaigya " was the old inherited caste (or, better class) name 
and could not be dispensed with. It had to cover various 
new livelihoods in the law-books, as in the older literature 
it covered all occupations not knightly, priestly, or menial. 
But in the epic, trader and Vai§ya are sundered outright, 
grouped as two classes; and here Vaigya, in sharp distinc- 
tion from trader, means agriculturist. The epic, moreover, in 
numerous passages intimates that, when a Vai^ya is spoken 
of, it is par excellence an agriculturist who is intended. 
Thus, in the words of the Goddess of Bliss: "I dwell in 



LAND-TENURE IN INDIA. 213 

the home of the Vaigya" (that is) "the one devoted to 
agriculture " ; and again : " This is the expiation of a Vaigya, 
to give part of his crops to a priest." The same work 
contains a list of priests who lead irregular lives : " Some 
[priests] practise agriculture and tend cattle ; some rely on 
begging," etc. Sometimes the word connotes simply a 
cowherd ; sometimes it includes the trader ; but it never 
indicates the trader alone. But not to quote more, though 
it would be easy, I will conclude this paragraph by saying 
that the town Vaigyas were usually guild-men, and became 
naturally much more important economically than their 
stupider brothers who stayed on the farm.^ To draw from 
such evidence the sweeping conclusion that India owes agri- 
culture to the Dravidians would be a surprising bit of logic. 
There is in reality no evidence whatever to show that the 
Aryans learned agriculture from the Dravidians. All that 
we can say is that there is no proof that the Vaigyas were 
a large special caste who introduced agriculture into India. 
As Mr. Baden-Powell in this respect also modified his 
original statements to this form {loc. cit. supra^ p. 53), it 
is perhaps unnecessary to argue this point further. 

The appointment of officers over various parts of the king- 
dom as subalterns very likely dates back to the Vedic period ; 
and as Mr. Baden-Powell says of the officers in Manu's law- 
book : " These were in all probability ' over-lords ' simply, 
who drew revenues from the landed proprietors." In one of 
the Upanishads it is said in a simile : [The vital breath com- 
mands the other breaths] " just as a samraj or universal king 
commissions his officers, saying : Be thou over these villages 
or those villages." But in many cases these villages do not 
seem to have had much tenacity as regards land. When, as 
is related in a Buddhist text, one village is annoyed by da- 
coits, it is regarded as the most natural thing in the world 
that the village should be moved, — that it should even divide 

1 But even trading (town) Vaipyas kept up agricultural pursuits, as is 
shown in many Buddhistic stories. See the preceding article on Ancient 
and Modern Hindu Guilds. 



214 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

into two bodies, one part going to one place and the other to 
another. 

Now this instability of the village is characteristic of the 
eastern part of India. From the east comes the account of 
the division first mentioned ; and similarly it is in the later 
epic, which is probably an eastern addition to the western poem, 
that the king is warned continually to be kind to the agricul- 
turists, as they are liable, if displeased, to leave their villages 
at any time and to seek homes elsewhere, even in the realm 
of his enemy. This, too, is corroborated by the proverb-wis- 
dom of the period : " A wife and a home, — these are second- 
ary matters ; one can find them everywhere." 

The gift of whole villages on the part of a king is a note- 
worthy feature of Buddhist literature {c. 300 B.C.), as it is of 
the epic. It is foreshadowed, as we have seen, in the tales of 
the Brahmanas, and there is a case or two mentioned in the 
early Upanishads. By what tenure these lands were held is 
perhaps not quite so certain as Mr. Baden-Powell thinks. 
But before describing the terms of these grants I must touch 
on another topic. 

The joint-family is the ideal of the later age, but it is not 
an ideal which is favored by the jurists. In the later law it 
is held to be more meritorious not to keep the family united, 
the principle being that of the so-called "increase of reli- 
gion." That is to say : the more householders, the more sac- 
rifices ; the more sacrifices, the more spiritual merit (and the 
more gifts to priests). But the joint-family stands in a poetic 
ideal light in the eyes of the epic poets. This tends to 
show on the one hand that it was old, and on the other 
that it was no longer customary. An example or two will 
illustrate this. An elder brother, who has all to gain and 
nothing to lose by keeping up the joint-family, reproves his 
younger brother, who demands partition of the family estate : 
" Many through folly desire partition, but such divided heirs 
are weakened before their foes." Again, in plaintive retro- 
spect of the good old days it is said : " In that age sons 
did not divide with their father." The strange thing about 



LAND-TENURE IN INDIA. 215 

this is that, according to all the legends and traditions of 
antiquity, the joint-family is unknown : the divided family 
is the rule. There is, to my knowledge, not a single in- 
stance in the mythical accounts of the past, where a father is 
represented as leaving his property to the family in general or 
as possessing it in common with them. The historical or 
legendary evidence, on the contrary, all points the other way. 
If, for instance, we turn back to the oldest period of which 
we have any knowledge, we find in the Rig Veda a distinct 
allusion to the fact that, when the father grew old and feeble, 
he was ousted from his property and his sons divided it among 
themselves. In the Brahmanas, again, there are two mythical 
accounts of Father Manu (not as the lawgiver here, but as the 
Adam of the race) and of the division of his inheritance. 
These differ only in details. One of them, either really the 
older or at least contained in an older work, describes the 
fact thus : " Manu divided his propertj'- for his sons ; one of 
them, living elsewhere as a student, he excluded from a 
share." The other account says : " The brothers excluded 
from a share one of Manu's sons." In both accounts the prop- 
erty is divided during the father's life. The position of the 
one son who assumes his father's place is described in the 
later literature of the Upanishads, where it is said that when 
a father, thinking he is about to die, bestows everything on 
his son and that son accepts it, then the father, if he recovers, 
must live under the son's authority or " wander about, a 
beggar." But this is a later case of only one son, and affects 
solely the status of the father when he has disposed of his 
authority; whereas the earlier tale recognizes each son as 
special owner of a special share. So, too, in the Yajur Veda 
is found another indication to the same effect, when it is said : 
" For this reason they fit out the eldest son with [an extra 
share of] property," as the sentence must be interpreted ac- 
cording to the context and according to the oldest commenta- 
tor, who is himself a jurist. ^ 

1 Apastamba's Law-Book, ii. 6, 14, 12. The accounts of partition are from 
the Black Yajur Veda and Aitareya Brahmana, references in Jolly, loc. cit. 



216 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

Again, in mythology we find constant references in the 
Brahmana period to the " division of inheritance " of the 
Father-god, whose children, the gods and the devils, " both 
being children of the Father-god," fight for their respective 
shares and " enter into their inheritance " by dividing it. In 
terms of real life this would show that the divided family was 
the ordinary family through the Brahmana period. So when 
a man has no son, he divides his property between his two 
wives, according to another well-known story of the same 
period. 

But the marriage hymn of the Rig Yeda indicates that the 
man takes his bride home and expects her to be mistress of 
the household, which expressly includes her father-in-law and 
brothers-in-law. Now this hymn represents, in all probability, 
a period much older than the mass of Vedic hymns ; and it 
would really be consonant with all the facts in the case, if we 
saw in this unique passage (for " hymns of concord " do not 
prove anything) a reference to the joint-family, though no 
longer in the " patriarchal " stage. In what way, however, 
can this be harmonized with the apparently contradictory evi- 
dence already adduced ? Clearly by the otherwise not im- 
probable assumption that the joint-family was already on the 
wane in the earliest (literary) period. It is for this reason, as 
it seems to me, that the two forms go theoretically hand in 
hand at a much later date, as in the law-book of Manu and 
the epic. In the latter, for instance, the same paragraph 
gives directions for maintaining a family in either way after 
the father's death. Here the joint-family is formally disap- 
proved of, while theoretically it is allowed ; but the only case 
where a really joint-family is represented is that of the chief 
epic heroes. These, however, are ideal types ; and even in 
their case the separate ownership of a younger brother is dis- 
tinctly recognized. Thus, in order to give away property 
belonging to his junior, the head of the family asks the lat- 
ter's permission ; and when this is refused, the younger retains 
his possessions undisturbed. 

When it is remembered, however, that the Aryans of the 



LAND-TENURE IN INDIA. 217 

Punjab are looked upon by the writers of this epic as outside 
the Brahmanic pale, and that many customs lingered among 
the former which the more advanced Aryans of the "middle 
district " (around the present Delhi) had long since re- 
nounced, it is clear that another element than that of time 
may be involved. It is a mistake to think that the Punjab 
was as un- Aryan two or three thousand years ago as it is to- 
day. In the epic, the inhabitants of what is now the Delhi 
district revile in no measured terms the western Punjab allies 
they unwillingly associate with, but it is not even suggested 
that they are not Aryans : it is merely said that their customs 
are strange, remote, not in keeping with the more eastern 
usage of the " middle land." It is therefore possible that the 
older joint-family was retained among those Aryans who, 
instead of striking southeast with the later Vedic poets, lin- 
gered behind in the Punjab. 

But the kind of property " divided " in the ancient tales I 
have referred to is never land but always flocks. Even the 
early law-books are very reticent in regard to the kind of 
property to be divided. When partition is expressly spoken 
of, however, it is in terms of cattle. " Impartible property " 
is described at length, the list increasing with the lateness of 
the author. Thus Manu's list includes "a dress, a vehicle, 
ornaments, prepared food, water [that is, a well], females 
[slaves], religious property, and a path [or pasture]," while 
Gautama, who states that land is not lost by adverse posses- 
sion, mentions only water, religious property, prepared food 
and females [slaves]. Uganas says that land is impartible, 
and this may be implied by Gautama, but the late jurists of 
the fourth and fifth centuries of our era specify houses and 
lands as partible. Fields owned by individuals are men- 
tioned, not only in the case of a man who clears a piece of 
jungle and is therefore admitted to be the possessor, but also 
in the laws concerning the establishment of disputed bounda- 
ries. It is therefore the more remarkable that in the laws of 
inheritance real estate is so often ignored. The later jurists 
are, in fact, as careful to give minute rules of inheritance in 



218 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

regard to house and land as are the early jurists to avoid 
express mention of such forms of inheritance. Professor 
Jolly finds in the implication of impartible real estate (as 
opposed to express rules for partible property) Spuren einer 
ehemaligen Feldgemeinschaft ganzer Dorfer, and is perhaps 
inclined to retain the village community, though he is not 
explicit on this point (§§ 23, 27, of Recht und Sitte), perhaps 
owing to lack of space to discuss the subject. This would at 
any rate be the natural inference if one believed that village 
ownership necessarily implied a village community. But, 
as will be seen, there is no necessity for accepting this 
conclusion. 

On the other hand, I think there can be no doubt that the 
general Hindu theory of impartible real estate is a distinct 
blow to the sweeping generalization made by Mr. Baden- 
Powell when he stated that the early Aryans in India recog- 
nized only private ownership in land. If the theory he 
advanced depended on the truth of this generalization, it 
would have to be abandoned as no less unsatisfactory than 
that of Sir Henry Maine. But the theory does not depend 
(as Mr. Baden-Powell seemed to think) on any such general- 
ization. It is, if I may say so, a pity that two facts were never 
recognized by that practical expositor : first, that there was a 
middle way, and, second, that in Hindu legal literature the 
same work will not only contain contradictory statements, 
but also imply different economic conditions. A very good 
(and for my present purpose important) illustration of this 
may be found in what Manu has said about boundary laws 
and what Mr. Baden-Powell has said about Manu. 

To take the latter case first, as the remarks on Manu are 
very short, Mr. Baden-Powell declared, with a simplicity 
almost too forced, that " rules for settling boundaries are 
given ; " and then used this presentation of the facts as an 
argument against the view that village holdings are known 
to Manu, and as a proof of exclusively " private ownership." ^ 

1 The Indian Village Community, p. 207. In the same author's Land 
Systems (vol. i. p. 227), the wording is " boundary of estates or holdings." 



LAND-TENURE IN INDIA. 219 

It is doubtless true that Manu recognizes boundaries of pri- 
vate estates ; but it is quite as important to notice that he 
not only recognizes boundaries of villages also, but devotes 
to the latter his chief care. In fact, the whole subject of 
boundaries in his law-book opens with elaborate rules for the 
adjustment of boundaries between " disputing villages ; " and 
it is only as an after-thought or appendix that he adds to these 
rules the subsidiary law in regard to " boundary lines of a 
field, spring, reservoir, garden, or house." Previous to the 
curt statement that in such cases the boundary shall be estab- 
lished " by an appeal to the neighbors," comes a long descrip- 
tion of the formalities to be observed " when a dispute has 
arisen between two villages." This description extends over 
seventeen paragraphs and closes with the statement that " as 
the witnesses declare, so shall the boundary be between the 
two villages." According to the commentator's reasonable 
explanation, there are two advocates or special pleaders, each 
representing one of the two villages, but the whole village 
takes part in the proceedings. The rule of Vasishtha, who 
quotes Manu and is not a very early writer,^ speaks only of 
the second kind of boundary. Still more noteworthy is the 
absolute inversion of the order in the still later law-book of 
Yajnavalkya. Here the boundary rule is applied first to 
private fields and then to " gardens, villages, and reservoirs." 
Virtually, the elder lawgiver says : " This is the law in re- 
gard to the disputed boundaries of villages," and then adds, 
"This law applies also to fields." The later jurist says: 
" This is the law in regard to fields," and then adds, " The 
law applies also to villages," — rather a significant alteration. 
It is of course true that this passage does not prove com- 
munal ownership in either village; but the inference from 
the prior description would not seem to be that the ownership 

1 The law-book of Vasishtha is a mixture of prose and verse, of old and 
new. Like the later writers, he prescribes, for instance, that a proof of owner- 
ship is a lekhya or "writing," and enjoins the use of documents in case of dis- 
puted ownership (xvi. 10, 14). The earliest Sutra lawgiver, Gautama, has no 
rule at all in regard to boundaries, though he recognizes enclosed fields and 
private ownership in land. 



220 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

spoken of is one of private fields ; and it was certainly going 
a little too far for Mr. Baden-Powell to cite the passage as 
evidence of exclusively private property. The inference to 
be drawn is, I think, neither that of Maine nor of Baden- 
Powell. This village is not a " village community," but it is 
also not a Raiyat village. It is a joint-village. The garlanded 
witnesses, marking out the lines in the presence of " all the 
inhabitants," point to the recognition of proprietary rights in 
those inhabitants as a bod}^ Further, in the early law, we 
hear of the much-despised " priest of a whole village," who, 
like the " priest of a corporation," apparently officiates for a 
corporate body. Now such village corporations are expressly 
recognized in the later law-books, and Professor Jolly, Recht 
und Sitte, p. 94, cites a text, found in commentaries but of 
doubtful authorship, which says that a field cannot be sold 
without the consent of the village. 

The habitat of the joint-family village seems to be in the 
agricultural districts of the Punjab, It is therefore interest- 
ing to notice that the people who are spoken of in the early 
Brahmana period as living " without kings " are inhabitants 
of the northwestern Punjab. But the epic, besides these, 
speaks of a people whose only name is " villagers " or " vil- 
lage-head-man people." They are great warriors and " live on 
the banks of the Indus." ^ To my thinking, Manu, whose 
law-book originated in what is now the southeastern Punjab, 
stands between two geographical and historical extremes ; and 
in his work, as in the early epic, which came from the same 
district, there are traces of two forms of holdings and two 
forms of inheritance and family. ^ 

It is a curious fact that the British have not yet been 
able to decide whether they are drawing a tax or a rent from 
the Hindu farmer. Some, like Mr. Chesney, say that the 

1 People living " without kings " are frequently mentioned in the epic, and 
always as if they were well known though much despised. 

2 I may add that Mr. Baden-Powell's notion (in support of his theory) that 
Manu's law-book comes from Oudh is utterly without a basis in fact. Manu 
praises only the Delhi district. The eastern districts he knows only as the 
home of impure castes. 



LAND-TENURE IN INDIA. 221 

land has always belonged to the crown, and the farmer pays 
rent for his land. Others, like Mr. Baden-Powell and Lord 
Salisbury, prefer to regard the revenue as a tax. Mr. Hynd- 
man says that " the matter is too clear for dispute," and that 
the land-revenue is a tax. Both sides appeal to ancient 
authorities and ancient ideas of the Hindu state ; while, on 
the other hand, M. Senart thinks that the ancient Hindus had 
no idea of a state at all. Some of the Greek authorities 
speak of taxes in India, and others speak of rent, even declar- 
ing that the whole country belonged to the king, and that no 
individual owned land at all. The Greeks, however, may be 
ignored, for the reason that in many of the economic state- 
ments they make they can be proved to be utterly untrust- 
worthy, and therefore in others are as likely to be wrong as 
right. 

Nor do I think that we can treat the words of the Hindu 
law-makers as we should those of modern economists who 
make a sharp distinction between rent and tax. In fact, 
though I do not know that the idea has been suggested be- 
fore, or that it would receive the approbation of scholars 
generally, I am convinced for my own part that the true solu- 
tion is to be found in the explanation that the revenue in 
ancient times was regarded as a tax, but that in regard to 
ownership the old Hindu legislator held (without raising the 
question which is now put first) that ownership in land was 
double. 

Incomprehensible as is this attitude at first sight, it is not 
incompatible with a doctrine both sound and natural. In the 
first place, the Hindu without doubt owned his land. To 
take the simplest case, he owned new land which he made 
(cleared of jungle), " as a hunter owns the deer he shoots," to 
employ the native parallel. On this land he paid a sixth of 
the crop as tax " in return for protection," as is stated over 
and over. If he did not get the protection the tax was not 
due. If the king took it " he incurred a sixth of the farmer's 
sins ; " that is, translated out of the eschatological balance- 
sheet, the king at his own death owed the farmer the tax 



222 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

unjustly taken. It is clear, therefore, that the farmer or joint- 
family, as the case might be, owned the land. The only re- 
striction was that his son (" a part of himself ") divided the 
ownership. Hence he could not alienate his land, but it was 
handed down from father to son or descended to the joint- 
family's heirs, alienable only by consent of the joint-village 
if the case was one of joint-village ownership. 

But, on the other hand, it was as unquestioned that the king 
was the master of all. The king is not only over-lord, he is 
owner, and one of his old titles is, " The one owning all the 
land." On this point I am compelled to differ from Mr. 
Baden-Powell, who claimed that the idea of land-ownership 
vested in the crown is a late growth. The king in the earliest 
period (in the recorded ceremony of inauguration) is expressly 
said to be the devourer of his people. This is no isolated 
phrase, nor are the people other than his own Vai§yas. The 
Aitareya Brahmana says that a priest's function is to take 
gifts, while the Vaigya's peculiar function is to be devoured by 
priest and nobleman. The only difference recognized in this 
early age between slave and farmer is that the latter, being 
Aryan, may not be killed at pleasure. 

Now I submit, in the first place, that it is nonsense to 
suppose that a peasant proprietor, openly described as fit 
only to be robbed by the king, could have had any secure 
hold of his landed property. The king's ownership extended 
to all property except a priest's, which is especially de- 
scribed as the only land in his realm "outside the king's 
district," dgd. 

But we find the same view also in the legal literature. Mr. 
Baden-Powell asserted, indeed, that the only authority for the 
idea that the state was considered superior owner of the soil, 
is a modern digest of the last century. 

But Brihaspati, whose code was written 500-600 A.D., says 
that the reason why the king becomes heir to property left 
without another heir [male issue, wife, or brother] is that 
he is the " owner of all ; " and Narada, who wrote his code 
about the same time or a little earlier, says that real estate 



LAND-TENURE IN INDIA. 223 

held for three generations cannot be estranged except by the 
king's will. Again, Brihaspati, who lived when the village 
owned by one man was customary, says in speaking of such a 
village : " Suppose land is taken from a village belonging to 
one man and transferred to another man either by [the action 
of] a river or by the king [to which man does it belong ?] 
It belongs to him who gets it from the river or from the 
king." The only reason is that the king is the supreme 
owner of the land. 

In the earlier period the question as to who owns the land 
is simply not discussed. In every reference to the subject it 
is said, as if it were a matter of course, that (with a constant 
exception in the case of priestly possessions) the king is the 
owner of everything. He is not only the over-lord, but he is 
the over-lord as owner. Thus, as owner simply, he gets half 
of all treasure-trove ; and that this is the true explanation is 
evident from the fact that, when the king gives a village 
to a priest, he gives him as owner the right to all the treas- 
ure-trove, — that is, the king's ownership has passed to the 
finder, who is now the owner. In regard to the interpreta- 
tion of the legal passage I do not stand alone. The late 
Professor Biihler, of Vienna, one of the foremost scholars in 
this line, declared long ago that he regards the rule just 
cited " as a distinct recognition of the principle that the 
ownership of all land is vested in the king." The epic also 
has many passages showing that, while the priest claimed a 
divine right to possess everything in theory, he has abro- 
gated this in practice, and in consequence everything belongs 
to the king to give. " Only a warrior [king] may give land 
to a priest," it is said ; and, conversely, it is said again : 
" Land may be taken possession of only by a king." " It 
is a Vedic utterance that the king is owner of the wealth 
of all save the priests," is another statement made alike by 
law and epic. Furthermore, although the epic kings are per- 
petually admonished by the sages not to do wrong to the 
people, and although various sins against them are enumer- 
ated as possible, — such as oppressive corvee, over-taxation, 



224 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

and the like, — yet it is not once hinted that a king should 
not rob his subjects of land. If the land were regarded as 
originally the peasant's own, we should surely meet some- 
where in the vast epic literature and wide range of legal 
^astra some such note as we hear in the modern peasant's de- 
fiant cry that " the king owns the tax, but the peasant owns 
the land." It is not till the fifth century of our era that the 
king is admonished "not to upset the two fundaments of 
the peasant's life, his house and field." ^ As I have already 
observed, in the period just preceding this the inhabitants of 
the country are represented as easily moved to leave their 
homes and go elsewhere. They are, in fact, especially told to 
do so, if the soil or the king is " bad." " One should leave 
his king or native place if they are bad [poor], and take that 
to be his country where he can earn a living," is an epic 
dictum. 

Nor are the laws of this period regarding the rights of kings 
contradictory. The king is declared to be the "preserver 
and destroyer " of his people, who are still, as of old, to be 
" devoured " by taxes or otherwise, as the king sees fit. When 
he needs it, " the king may take all the possessions, small and 
great, of those who break the ten commandments [of moral- 
ity]," and "any possessions of any one save a priest." The 
king further gives and gambles away fields, villages, and whole 
districts at pleasure. Nor is such a gift of a village a presen- 
tation of the right to tax alone. The recorded copper-plate 
grants of the first centuries after Christ explicitly declare of 
what nature was this ownership. The grantee is made absolute 
owner, not relative, as in the case of an over-lord. We must, 
I think, interpret the agrahdra land-grants mentioned in the 
epic in the light of those actually extant. It follows that 
while the king had every reason to let his subjects be owners 
practically, it was always acknowledged that he owned the land 
so far as right of dispossession went. He owned it, but he let 
his subjects live on it, for to them he was as a " father to 
sons." But, in that he protected them and needed money, he 

1 Narada's Law-Book, 



LAND-TENURE IN INDIA. 225 

made an agreement that while they lived on his land they 
paid him for living there securely. In other words, just as 
the king might take all a farmer's flocks if needed and annu- 
ally took part of the flocks as payment (tax) for guarding the 
farmer, so he took part of the crop as payment for protection, 
not as rent, although as universal owner the land was his if 
he chose to take it. 

We may then assert that, according to the notion of the 
time, the king owned the land, but did not draw rent for it. 
It was taxed for protection only. Yet it may be seen even in 
the law-books that there was a gradual decline of the view 
that gave all to the king, and a gradual growth of the view 
that the field was more and more owned altogether by the 
peasant proprietor ; the king's " ownership of all " declining 
just as his " right to plunder his farmers " was restricted by 
advancing civilization. In the later law the king's owner- 
ship disappeared except as a theory. 

But a good deal of it is left in the epic, and we may thus 
interpret the power and ownership of kings in the light of 
such callous remarks as meet us in that literature. One pas- 
sage of the epic declares : " All property is the result of 
conquest and robbery. The best property is that which one 
gets by taking it from another. When kings conquer earth, 
they speak of the land just as sons do of their father's 
property and say: 'This land belongs to me.'" Of the 
"king-devoured people " the king himself was absolute master, 
and it seems almost unnecessary to urge that the land was 
his or his subjects', in accordance with the tyrant's will. 
Sages admonish, but the kings steal and give and take as 
before. To them in their power there was but one rule, — 
that enunciated again as a proverb in the epic : "To the 
mighty all is proper ; to the mighty all is right ; to the mighty 
all is their own." That is to say, the force majeure was the 
determinant factor. Let us imagine a state where the king 
was answerable only to his own conscience for compensation 
given to a dispossessed peasant, and we have the Hindu's 
earlier rights of possession. He owned land as against his 

15 



226 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

fellow-subjects, but he owned it as against the king just as the 
jackal owns what the tiger wants. 

In the preceding paragraphs I have referred to the growth 
of land-giving. It begins with a kingly gift of a field to a 
priest. The early law does not approve of such gifts, but the 
later law praises them. The epic extols them as in the 
highest degree meritorious. The practice appears to have 
grown up in the large eastern kingdoms and is a feature of 
Buddhism. The epic says emphatically that all property 
belongs to the king " and to no second person " ; while it 
mentions several cases of agrahdra land-grants, though it does 
not know the copper-plate grant, which appears fii'st in the 
law-book of Yajnavalkya. These grants, as described in the 
epic, are made either to priests or to personal friends of a 
king or queen. Land-giving on a large scale is called an 
" earth sacrifice." In these cases the recipients become actual 
owners, not over-lords. 

We may now turn from this sketch of the past and see how 
the literary evidence is borne out by the state of affairs that 
exists to-day. To do this, it will be necessary to mention 
briefly the facts as given in Mr. Baden-Powell's comprehen- 
sive description of present conditions. 

The first blow to the old interpretation of sociological phe- 
nomena in India was given hj the discovery that, instead of 
a community (in the strict sense) being par excellence the 
village of India, throughout the greater part of the country 
nothing exists that even resembles such a village. All over 
middle and southern India, in the east and also in the 
west, there is one common type of village, the Raiyat 
("ryot," subject, peasant farmer) or severalty village. Only 
in the northwest, in the Punjab, is there to be found the 
kind of village which was mistaken by Sir Henry Maine for a 
"village community." 

To understand the force of Mr. Baden-Powell's objections 
to the theory of Sir Henry Maine, we must comprehend clearly 
the essential points of difference between the types of villages 
referred to. There are two main classes of Hindu villages, 



LAND-TENURE IN INDIA. 227 

the severalty village and the joint-village. These differ in 
their constitution as follows : The severalty or Raiyat village 
is characterized by having a "head-man" (who is selected 
from one of the leading families), and by an allotment of 
shares of land to each member of the group. In this kind of 
village every member is responsible individually for his share 
of any tax that may be levied on the village. The holdings 
are periodically distributed, but this is only to insure sooner 
or later a fair deal, so that each villager, turn and turn about, 
may get as good a farm as his neighbor. This redistribution 
has been claimed to be an indication of an early communal 
holding, but wrongly ; for the privileged families do not and 
never did own the village or share it in fractions as do the 
members of a joint-village. Four peculiarities distinguish 
this type of village from the most perfect kind of joint- 
village. The former has a Patel "head-man" (^pditV)', the 
latter has none. The former has holdings which have always 
been separate ; the latter has holdings which are only in- 
herited shares of an original single estate. The former has 
no mutual liability for taxes, but each holding is assessed 
separately ; the latter has a joint liability, the revenue being 
assessed in a lump sum. And, finally, the Raiyat village has 
no common land, whereas the joint-village owns a common 
land, though it is liable to partition. 

Such is the one general form of the severalty village. Of 
the joint- village, on the other hand, there are three species. 
The first, or most perfect kind, is the Pattidtri, or " shared " 
ancestral village, where the community are the descendants 
of one man or of brothers ; the second is the Bh§,i9,chart, or 
" brotherhood " tribal village, where a tribe, or it may be a 
clan, holds land under joint responsibility for the taxes ; the 
third is the associate village, where different families make 
up a united group simply for defence in holding their land 
against outsiders. A moment's consideration of the condi- 
tions under which land is possessed in each of these groups 
shows that the tribal and associate forms are not in any sense 
a body of communal owners. 



228 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

In the tribal joint-village the shares have always been held 
separately, having been originally allotted to each member of 
the group. The members are joint only in their united 
ownership of waste land and of the village site, together with 
a united responsibility for taxes. This kind of joint- village 
is really a sort of severalty village, and such a tribal allot- 
ment has actually been the starting-point of the true severalty 
village, as shown in the primitive (matriarchal) Kolarian 
village. 

In the associate joint-village there is still less of real joint- 
ownership. Here the shares are equal, and, as in the last 
case, are not derived from a common ancestor. The village 
is founded by families or colonists who take up land and allot 
it at once. These families or colonists may or not be of the 
same tribe. They associate only for mutual protection, and 
are joint only in assuming a united responsibility for taxes. 

The villages of these two species are chiefly quite modern. 
They belong to the western and eastern Punjab respectively, 
and their inhabitants are Jats and other non-Aryan tribes. 
The severalty village, generally speaking, is Dravidian. 

There remains, as the only unit resembling a village com- 
munity, the ancestral joint-family village. But here all the 
shares are inherited portions of an estate originally owned by 
one man (or two brothers), who became the rulers of the vil- 
lage. His property, the village, passed to his joint-heirs 
(agnates only, in itself an argument against communal owner- 
ship), and might or might not be divided at the option of the 
heirs. Sometimes part is divided and part not. In any case, 
the heirs hold the property always liable to division, so that 
even in their case there is no communal holding. Still less 
does the whole village own the land, which is generally rented 
to tenants, the rents being divided among the descendants of 
the original lord of the manor. Even when the estate is undi- 
vided, each heir is actually in possession of a special part and 
holds it for his own benefit. 

We are now able to understand just what the indications 
and express statements of ancient literature imply (for even 



LAND-TENURE IN INDIA. 229 

express statements about real estate are not explicit as regards 
communes). We find there a joint-family and also an undi- 
vided family. Some of the property is partible. Some of it 
is not. A field, it is said, is impartible. But the later the 
legal authority, the more inclined is he to find ways in which 
property formerly impartible can be made partible. The ori- 
ginally impartible condition of landed estate is evidenced 
among other things by the fact that it cannot be lost to a 
family by an outsider's possession. All the inhabitants of a 
village are responsible for its debts. They have a common 
meadow-land for grazing, but separate fields for the individual 
villager whose property is demarcated, and whose right of 
possession ceases at the boundary or is shared (as in the case 
of fruit-trees growing on the line) by his next neighbor only. 
A field may be rented for half its yield by the individual vil- 
lao-er. But a field cannot be sold without the consent of the 
whole village, or at least of the family. 

Such are the data of the legal literature, and they are sup- 
ported by the evidence of the earliest inscriptions. It follows 
that while a common ownership was exercised by the village, 
there was within the village private ownership of land, which 
was inherited as impartible property by the sons (and widow). 
But alongside of this was also the severalty arrangement, 
which in many cases overthrew this joint-ownership. The 
types then were severalty and joint villages, and not com- 
munal types. The most communistic form is the still undi- 
vided inheritance of a joint-family ; but this is an estate which 
is always liable to partition. As it seems to me, the joint- 
family with its original common ownership of land is sufficient 
to account for all such traces of communistic land-ownership 
as we have any record of, and the joint-ownership of the vil- 
lage had only the form of the modern " joint- village." As 
to-day, so of old, villages were of the joint and severalty class, 
but they were not communal in the strict sense. 



THE CAUSE AND CURE OF FAMINE. 

To venture to address even the most intelligent or dispas- 
sionate audience on any phase of England's responsibility 
toward India (such as her responsibility for drought and 
famine), is, I fear, sadly like the recklessness of the man 
that should intrude himself between the devil and the deep 
sea. For on the one side stands the pessimist, who holds 
England guilty of grave crimes, sees no virtue in her, and 
expects only future ill from her future rule; while, on the 
other, stands the optimist, who brooks no adverse criticism 
of England's actions and maintains that her rule is as benefi- 
cent as it is benevolent. 

But it is neither as a reviler nor as a defender of England 
that I have accepted the invitation to speak to you of fam- 
ines in India, but rather as an historian, who sees in sundry 
statements made by well-meaning partisans certain points 
capable, perhaps, of being put more clearly than any parti- 
sanship can put them. It is then rather to the past than to 
the present that I shall invite your attention, and if I speak 
of the future it will be only as a picture which may be 
drawn in the light of the past. For this reason I shall pass 
over altogether certain features, such as the recent demone- 
tization of silver, which lie outside of my point of view ; nor 
shall I descant on the horrors of famine, of which you have 
doubtless already heard more than enough. But, to begin 
with a subject remote from all possible partisan interest, let 
me first call your attention to the Bengal tiger. 

For many centuries the most useful beast in India was the 
tiger. The Hindus preferred the gentle cow and finally dei- 
fied her, not exactly as the Golden Calf, but at any rate as 



THE CAUSE AND CURE OF FAMINE. 231 

the Divinely Useful ; for in their time the Hindus too have 
been utilitarians. But they were rather inclined to ignore 
the tiger (except for a significant exchange of compliments 
in calling a king the tiger among men and a tiger the king 
among animals) ; nor did they even vex themselves with the 
question why the tiger was created, for their suiScient phi- 
losophy taught that he was made to enjoy himself. So they 
never really appreciated his function in the scheme of crea- 
tion, — an ignorance the more remarkable since they were on 
the edge of discovering the truth, when they epitomized his 
work in the verse: 

The wood doth guard the tiger as the tiger guards the wood. 

The tiger guarded the wood, and in guarding it he helped 
for many centuries to save the Hindu and the cow from 
extreme drought and famine. His place in the economy of 
Hindu civilization was to keep man and man's destructive axe 
out of the great reservoir of rain, the primeval forest, and 
if we may trust the literature, which reflects the fear man 
felt when wandering in the tiger's domain, the latter played 
his part pretty well. All that great bare belt of country 
which now stretches south of the Ganges — that vast waste 
where drought seems to be perennial and famine is as much 
at home as is ^iva in a graveyard — was once an almost im- 
penetrable wood. Luxuriant growth filled it ; self -irrigated, 
it kept the fruit of the summer's rain till winter, while the 
light winter rains were treasured there in turn till the June 
monsoon came again. Even as late as the epic period, it was 
a hero's derring-do to wander through that forest- world south 
of the Nerbudda, which at that time was a great inexhaustible 
river, its springs conserved by the forest. Now the forest is 
gone, the hills are bare, the valley is unprotected, and the 
Nerbudda dries up like a brook, while starved cattle lie down 
to die on the parched clay that should be a river's bed. A 
little later than the time when the heroes of the epic, as is 
narrated therein, first set fire to the tiger's lair, there were 
roads and settlements here and there through the great forest. 



232 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

The heroes had broken out the path for civilization and the 
civilians followed, but slowly and cautiously, for the tiger 
still guarded the wood. But in the end man triumphed over 
Nature's other children, and in burning and felling the for- 
est of the Deccan planted the seed of famine over a wide area ; 
whereas hitherto this noxious plant, though by no means un- 
known, had been restricted in its growth. 

For in India famine is the child of drought, and no one 
need starve who has enough water, unless indeed the crop be 
stolen after the water has done its work. But this unless^ it 
must be added, shows that famine may be due to something 
besides drought. And as it would be only a half-truth to 
state that famine is due in all cases entirely to drought, so 
it is just such a "veiled lie," as the Hindus call a half-truth, 
to say that either deforestation or robbery (whether in the 
guise of dacoits or tax-collectors) is alone the cause of 
famine. For despite the good work done by the tiger, there 
were droughts that produced famines or ever there were 
tax-collectors. 

This would seem to be so much a matter of course as to 
make insistence upon the point quite unnecessary, did we 
not constantly hear expressed the half-truth that famine 
is a modern invention resulting from British oppression. 
Drought there may have been in ancient times, says the 
stanch opponent of British wrong-doing, but famine never; 
for the cultivator, not having his crop stolen, was able to 
draw from his store and weather the weather till the rains 
came again. 

But as there are various sides to this question, so there are 
various half-truths, concealments of facts and distortions of 
history, which must be examined in the order in which they 
arise, before we can even begin to come near the cover of 
bare facts which compose the body of truth itself. 

First, then, as regards the proposition that famine is the 
result of British oppression solely. 

That British rule is oppressive, is granted even by the 
British, who, indeed, are wont to admit it very cheerfully, for, 



THE CAUSE AND CURE OF FAMINE. 233 

as Lord Salisbury has implied, "India must be bled," and 
bleeding a body half dead from inanition it is no exaggera- 
tion to describe as a form of oppression. ^ 

But it is one thing to say that there is oppression and 
another to affirm that it is universal, and that as such it is 
the sole parent of famine. The first famine-cry comes from 
the most ancient records of India : — 

The waters of the upper sea in heaven were prisoned by the gods, 
But the wise priest released them all (removed the drought, 
and wet the sods). 
He, praying, sang the magic verse; the rain-compelling voice 
had he, 
God, free us from the Hunger-ill and give that magic word to 
me^ — 
Let loose for us on earth the rain — the waters of yon heavenly 
sea! 

Here the descendant or imitator of the ancient priest, who 
had the "rain-compelling voice," calls to mind the famous 
famine of old, and in his present distress, with the artless sim- 
plicity of the virtuous, begs from the highest rain-god that gift 
of speech which, with magical power, shall force the gods to 
give up the rain they have withheld, and preserve man from 
the Hunger-ill that will follow the drought. But this is only 
one of many voices raised in the Rig Veda in supplication 
to the gods, who are over and over besought to drive away 
the plague of hunger : 

Indra (rain-god), give food and strength to us who are 
hungry. 

1 Lord Salisbury's remark, however, was in defence of the praiseworthy 
idea that the cultivators should be spared at the expense of the towns. That 
India must be bled follows from his further reply, " We cannot afford it," to 
the suggestion that the tax on the cultivator should be limited to " fifty per 
cent, on the gross produce" {sic) of each farm. The former passage is as fol- 
lows : " As India must be bled, the lancet should be directed to the parts where 
the blood is congested, or at least sufficient, not to those which are already 
feeble from the want of it." 

2 The place of this verse in the original is before the others ; literally, " the 
voice that has strength (to) free from the hunger-plague and win rain." 



23i INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

Help us with thy help, powerful god, save us from this 
(present) plague, hunger and wretchedness. 
Indra, do thou keep drought and hunger from our pasture. 

Compare also this significant remark: 

The gods did not give hunger as the only death. ^ 

So general, in fact, was this cry, that the word "plague," 
amiva, as used above, became synonymous with "famine," 
anagana. 

And beginning with this remote age, we can trace the 
same cry down through the centuries, past the Atharvan 
poet, who prays that the sun may not ruin his crop, to the 
epic period, when we observe that the gods were no longer 
trusted over-much. For besides the system of irrigation, 
which was introduced in the earliest age and is alluded to 
in the Rig Veda, we find the belief that it was necessary to 
help out the ever-dubious intentions of the gods. Even in 
the Vedic verses just cited, the gods, not the usual devil of 
drought, are represented as imprisoning the waters. But in 
the epic, a sage says to the king whom he is visiting: "I 
hope all goes well in your Majesty's kingdom and that you 
do not trust in the gods for harvests." The implication is 
that a king would not leave the gods to provide water for 
the farmers. For the good kings of the epic, far from trust- 
ing too much in the gods, built canals and reservoirs as their 
first duty, irrigating the country as well as they could. But 
when their gods, who, like Herakles, were pleased to see 
them exert themselves, rewarded them with extreme favor, 
then it was said in laudation of such a king, and as a proof 
of his extraordinarily good fortune, that " in the reign of this 
king there was no famine." 

But, as is implied even with this praise, famine in other 
reigns was no rarity. Nay, not once, but repeatedly, we 
find allusions in the epic to "a drought that lasted many 

1 These passages will be found in the Rig Veda, x. 98 ; i. 104, 7 ; viii. 66, 14 ; 
viii. 60, 20 (anira and ksudh) ; x. 117, 1. 



THE CAUSE AND CURE OF FAMINE. 235 

years," hahuvarsiki, and again, more specifically: "Now at 
that time there was a twelve-year drought." This last 
expression, though it is, I confess, a close parallel to the 
preceding, may possibly be taken in a sense other than that 
usually given by the poets themselves to the adjective 
"twelve-year;" namely, in the sense of the drought which 
comes every twelve years. As is well known, a drought 
does come about once in a dozen years. Thus "the twelve- 
year drought " may refer to such a phenomenon as well as to 
a drought lasting twelve years, just as "yearly," vdrsika, is 
used either of something lasting for a year, for example, 
a food-supply for a year, or of something which comes 
once a year, for example, an annual tribute. ^ 

Now it may be said by those who believe that drought does 
not necessarily entail death, that here also there is no proof 
of drought resulting in famine. But the answer to this is 
that whenever such mention of drought occurs, the next 
thing noticed is the famine that followed it. Thus, in one 
account: "Now at that time came a (or the) twelve-year 
drought. The store of food was exhausted, and there was 
no food." The descriptions of such famines are sufficiently 
vivid to make it certain that the scenes were drawn from 
life. Proverb-literature, too, than which nothing more faith- 
fully reflects the face of the times, assumes that drought, 
famine, and the ruin of a district is the ordinary sequence 
of events: "Happy, indeed, are they who, when their dis- 
trict is smitten by drought, and the grain is all destroyed, 
do not see their district ruined and their family extermi- 
nated." What, 1 would ask, can these words signify, if not 
that it is a rare event for the peasant to survive unharmed 
through the famine that naturally follows drought? Even 
the law was changed to suit famine-times, and though the 

1 The poets, indeed, employ the adjective " twelve-year " as if it implied a 
period of twelve years; but it would have been a simple matter to use a 
phrase of one meaning in the other sense, which was possible and much 
more picturesque for the poets' purpose. The Sanskrit word is (andvrstir) 
dvddagavdrfiikl. There is, however, as noticed below, a record in more modern 
times of one drought that lasted twelve years. 



236 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

usual rule is that a man may not take his wife's property, 
we read that, "In famine, if a man has taken his wife's 
property to support life (that is, probably, sold her silver 
bangles, as many have had to do in the recent famine) he is 
not obliged to refund it." 

We must conclude, then, that not only in the Punjab, 
whence perhaps came the earliest hunger-cry, but even in 
the tiger-districts along the lower Ganges, drought and fam- 
ine were painfully familiar before the British took a hand in 
starving the peasants. The forest and the rivers, as shown 
in the literature, prevented an effect so wide-spread as is 
customary to-day, but the destruction of forests was the 
work of the Hindus themselves. ^ 

Thus we see, on the evidence of the Hindus' own ancient 
literature, that famine obtained in India from the earliest 
times. The claim, therefore, that drought is converted into 
famine only under British rule may be set down as simply 
preposterous. Nor do we even have to revert to the evi- 
dence of the earlier literature, for the same conditions existed 
from the fourteenth to the seventeenth century, when the 
British were as yet unconcerned with taxation in India. That 
these historical cases have been ignored altogether, does not 
redound to the credit of those who have discussed the sub- 
ject. For it was, perhaps, not to be expected that an Eng- 
lish statistician should be conversant with ancient Hindu 
literature; but that any one who can read English should 
insist that famine was unknown in India prior to the as- 
sumption of power by the British is quite unpardonable 
in the light of records accessible to all. The very worst 
famine known in Hindu histor}^ came in 1396. It is 
known as the "dreadful famine," and according to native 
accounts it lasted for twelve years (unless this again was a 

1 I pass over the case of famine resulting not from drought but from too 
much water, since, so far as I know, the British have not been made responsi- 
ble for this form of distress. It is referred to in a proverb, which deprecates 
" too much " (a native firi^ev li.yav) : " Through too great cold the wood is 
burned, through too much rain the famine comes ; too much is ever bad " (aft 
kutrd 'pi ne 'ajjati) 



THE CAUSE AND CURE OF FAMINE. 237 

case of the twelve-year famine). At any rate, its effects 
were felt in "very scant revenue" for thirty years after- 
wards, and "whole districts were entirely depopulated," 
according to the native historians of Maharashtra, where 
this famine occurred, as is duly set forth in Grant Duff's 
History of the Mahrattas. Then there was another famine 
north of the Godavari at the end of the fifteenth century; 
while in 1629-1630, " famine and pestilence " ensued upon a 
drought in the Deccan (more particularly in Bombay itself 
in 1618). So under Moghul rule, we have this testimony of 
Antonio de Mello de Castro in 1662: "The Moghuls have 
destroyed these lands, through which cause many persons 
have died from famine."^ And before leaving this side of 
the question, since the benign rule of the Moghul is often 
contrasted by native writers with the inhuman rule of the 
British, I will notice the words of an unprejudiced witness 
cited by Sir Alfred Lyall in his Rise of the British Domin- 
ion in India (p. 34). In a letter to Colbert, Bernier writes: 
" The country is ruined. ... No adequate idea can be con- 
veyed of the sufferings of that people." 

We are now in a position to view with more critical appre- 
ciation the statement that famine to-day in India is caused 
solely by British taxation. After Mr. Hyndman's diatribe, 
entitled The Bankruptcy of India, which was published many 
years ago, Mr. Romesh Dutt, in his recent book. Famines in 
India, has taken up the task of proving that if not too 
heavily taxed by the British the native farmer would never 
suffer from famine. Mr. Dutt goes to the extreme of saying 
that there would be no famine at all, but only a scarcity 
easily borne by the thrifty farmer, who would save enough in 
years of plenty to tide him over the effects of drought. The 
proof of this is drawn from the cases of famine in the last 
century, and the assertion is made that there has been no 
famine where the tax has been light. 

There is quite a difference in the way in which various 
parts of India are taxed. Generally speaking, the northern 

* Da Cunha, Origin of Bombay, p. 247. 



238 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

part is lightly taxed, and the middle and south are heavily 
taxed. The last famine was most severely felt in the middle 
part, one illustration of the theory. 

But where are the other necessary illustrations, and is even 
this one convincing ? The latter question may be answered 
first. In stating that the excessive severity of famine in the 
Central Provinces, in 1897, was due entirely to the fact that 
they were more heavily taxed than were the Punjab and 
Bengal Provinces, the following items have been altogether 
omitted from consideration : There was much greater drought 
in the Central Provinces, it began earlier, continued later, 
and was more severe.^ There is a superb system of irriga- 
tion in the Punjab, but none in the Central Provinces. The 
soil of the northeastern part of the country is much richer 
and the harvest larger than in the Central Provinces. The 
people of both the northwestern and northeastern parts of 
the country needed only to be invited to come to the relief- 
works (they are a much more intelligent class) ; whereas a 
large proportion of those who died of famine in the Central 
Provinces were half wild, only lately touched by civilization, 
and it was almost impossible to get them to leave their vil- 
lages and come to relief-works. 

That these are rather important items, will, I think, be 
admitted, and to omit these factors in considering the reason 
why the Central Provinces suffered most is to weaken the 
force of this illustration to a minimum. Then for the other 
illustrations : 

The terrible famines of 1770 and 1784 were caused in part 
by maladministration. But at that time all taxes were severe, 
and they were all but a portion of a far greater burden. The 
famine of Bombay in 1803 was aggravated by the Mahrattas, 
who devastated the country and prevented the planting of 
crops. In 1804 there was a famine in North India, but the 
ravages of a native army had here also devastated the coun- 

1 The Viceroy, on his trip early in the winter, while still in the northern 
part of the country, could still say, " There is no famine so far as I can see," 
while peasants were already dying of hunger in the Central Provinces. 



THE CAUSE AND CURE OF FAMINE. 239 

try. So terrible were these ravages that maladministration 
and mistakes made in land revenue administration can be 
counted only as very subsidiary factors. The heavy tax of 
two-thirds the rental in North India was modified in 1855, 
so that in 1860 the moderate tax, which is now looked upon 
as an effective antidote to famine, had already been in force 
for several years ; yet in 1860 there was a very severe famine 
there. In 1874 there would have been in Bengal a million 
deaths from famine, had not the government foreseen it and 
provided assistance. Yet, strange to say, the fact that the 
people, when aided by the government, did not starve under 
the permanent settlement, as they would have done if left to 
themselves, is not ascribed to the beneficent intervention of 
the government, but to the permanent settlement. So the 
absence of permanent settlement is made the cause of the 
great Orissa famine in 1866, though in that case death was 
due to the fact that there was no railway to carry a food- 
supply, and the people were killed by floods as much as by 
famine. This particular famine is ascribed to British oppres- 
sion by Mr. Dutt, as opposed to the light taxation of the 
Bengal Zamindar, so that it is interesting to see that the 
same famine is ascribed by Mr. Hyndman in his Bank- 
rupcty of India (p. 52) to the Zamindar himself. Then, 
again, there was a drought in 1876 in North India, when, 
as the conditions were those in which, according to this 
tax-theory, no famine can arise, famine surely ought not 
to have followed. But what happened? How did the 
greatly improved rate of taxation affect the country? 
There was a very severe famine with an " excess mortality of 
1,250,000." How much better showing is this than that 
made in the over-taxed Madras Province in the famines of 
1889 and 1892? 

A review of famine-conditions during the century fails to 
establish that smaller assessments of taxes have in themselves 
made famines much less fatal. Famines have been more fatal 
in over-assessed districts because the heavier tax has always 
coincided with more important factors; that is to say, the 



240 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

district where the tax, owing to amount and permanency, is 
least heavy is the most fertile district of India or the best 
irrigated. But even in these districts, notwithstanding fer- 
tility, irrigation, and a light tax, millions die of famine. 
There may be more who die under a heavier tax, but the 
proportion is not strikingly different or greater than can be 
otherwise accounted for. In fine, the tax itseK is only one 
factor out of many. 

As long ago as the law-book of Manu, it was asserted that 
famine is the inevitable concomitant of bad government, — 
a view that is insisted upon also by the epic writers. But 
those enlightened writers of antiquity did not teach that 
over-taxation caused famine, but that famine was caused 
by drought, and that drought was to be avoided by good 
government, as shown by irrigation and the construction 
of artificial reservoirs. They taught, moreover, that when, 
because of insufficient provision against drought, famine 
resulted, then it was the business of the government 
to remit taxes and advance loans to the cultivators. 
This was insisted upon less from a philanthropic motive 
than on the economic ground that ruined cultivators ruin 
a realm. 

When, however, we turn to the ancient records of India to 
see how the Hindus governed themselves, we find at once 
that we must make a sharp distinction between the reign of 
law and the savage period that has left its traces on the ante- 
legal literature. I say savage, for though there were cities 
and a kind of civilization, yet the kings of this period not 
only were savage as regards their attitude toward the farmers, 
but they were told (by the priests) to be so ; whereas, on the 
other hand, in the later legal literature, the cruel king who 
devours his people is referred to only as a horrible possibility. 
We may take the praise of kings cum grano salis, and admit 
that even in the legal period there were probably bad rulers, 
as, indeed, it is frankly admitted in epic poetry of about the 
same time that bad kings still devoured their people, and 



THE CAUSE AND CURE OF FAMINE. 241 

that the rich man feared the king as he did death itself.^ 
But at this time there was strenuously inculcated at least, 
not only as a duty but as a precept of common-sense, the 
rule that the people are not made to be "eaten," but to be 
protected, "for by heavy taxation the king cuts his own 
root." So it marks an advance when we read on the one 
hand that the people are there only "to be devoured" by 
king and priest, and on the other that "the king who de- 
vours his people by unjust taxation goes to hell." In treat- 
ing elsewhere of land-tenure, I have spoken of this very 
savage time, when the kings were "tigers among men" in 
more senses than one. I refer to it here only as a not 
surprising historical item, reflecting neither praise nor blame 
upon those valiant kings who, as might have been expected 
from the age they lived in, were frank practisers of the 
doctrine taught them by the priests (as any one may read in 
their sacred books) that the agricultural class existed only 
to support the aristocracy of nobles and priests and might 
be plundered at pleasure. When, therefore, our modern 
native authors, in their most laudable zeal to improve the 
state of their poor fellow-countrymen, tell us that the good 
old Hindu kings never over-taxed, we must inquire which 
kings they refer to. 

For there were good kings in India. In the legal period, 
which is still remote enough to claim an antiquity of over 
two thousand years, there is every reason to believe that the 
earlier rapacity of the kings had been in part checked by the 
growth of the third estate, through developed agricultural 
and mercantile life, and that kings were rather protectors 
than robbers of their people. To these kings and their times 
it is perfectly legitimate to refer as an example of the way 
the people were treated by ancient native rulers. 

The tax in old times under these native kings was sixteen 

1 " As living creatures fear death, so the rich fear a king," Mbh. iii. 2, 39. 
Elsewhere, ib. xiii. 61, 33, it is said that a rascal-king, rdjakali, who fails to pro- 
tect or taxes too heavily, " should be killed like a mad dog," nihantavyah ^veva 
sonmada aturah. 

16 



242 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

and two-thirds per cent, of the gross produce. This is not a 
mere theory or legal fiction, for so regular was this rate that 
the king, and in no other way could he have received this 
sobriquet^ was known universally through legal and epic and 
later popular literature, as the "sixth-taker." One sixth, ig- 
noring his agents, was the hinges share till the time of the 
Cholas, a thousand years ago. It was increased only when 
the existence of the state was imperilled, at which time 
twenty-five per cent, might be taken as an extreme measure, 
though not as the most extreme; for it is expressly stated 
that if a king absolutely needed it, he might take what he 
chose from his wealthy subjects. But, having defended 
the people by means of the funds raised in this way, "the 
king should resume his lawful tax." On the other hand, 
if it is the husbandman who is in distress, or his lands are 
too poor to yield a surplus, the rate is lowered to twelve and 
one-half, ten, or eight and one-third per cent. , according to 
circumstances; or may even be remitted altogether. 

Contrasted with this, the British rate of taxation is from 
one quarter more to double the amount regularly demanded 
by the ancient Hindu kings. The average British tax is 
about the same as that demanded by the ancient Hindu 
kings as an extreme tax, warranted only by the necessity of 
"taking from the farmer to defend the farmer." But a tax 
not at all uncommon under British rule is even more than 
this, and sometimes reaches quite a half of the gross produce 
of any one field. 

But this half, as contrasted with the old sixth, is not a 
British invention ; and from the historical point of view, to 
make a special point against the British on this score, as if 
they had invented some new method of torture, is quite un- 
warranted. One third or one half the produce is too high 
a tax (or rent, as it is sometimes facetiously called), but it 
is not a tax invented by the British. The Cholas of South 
India took half the produce as a regular tax, and the ideal 
formal tax of the Mahrattas was forty per cent, of the gross 
produce. Moreover, it must be remembered that this latter 



THE CAUSE AND CURE OF FAMINE. 243 

was merely the scheduled rate, instituted by 9ivaji, the great 
founder of the Mahratta state, in antithesis to the rule of 
Todar Mall (adopted by Shah Jahan), whereby (nominall}^) 
one-fourth to one-half the gross produce (one-fourth with 
permanent settlement) was taken as tax. 9^vaji, on the 
other hand, adopted the arrangement instituted by Dadaji, 
whereby the farmer gave the government two-fifths of the 
produce (in 1637). But under ^ivaji's successors, "the 
revenues were farmed (as they were not to be, according to 
yivaji's rule), many of the raiyats fled from their villages, 
and speedy ruin threatened the territory. "^ According to 
Lyall,^ the Mahrattas "rackrented the land scientifically," 
whenever they settled down upon it ; though, as a matter of 
fact, they were mainly occupied with pillaging and devastat- 
ing the country. 

Thus we see that the good old Hindu kings, who took only 
one-sixth of the crop, came between two sets of native Hindu 
kings who were not so virtuous. Before them were the kings 
who held the farmers to be the " food of the nobility " and 
good only to be robbed at pleasure ; ^ while after them came 
the "plundering robbers" of the South, as Judge Burnell 
called the Vijayanagara Telugu kings, and the Mahrattas of 
the Deccan. Moreover, under native kings sixty per cent, of 
the actual yield has been taken from the threshing floor even 
in the past century.^ 

1 Grant Duff, op. cit., i. pp. 125, 232, 319. 

2 Lyall, op. cit., p. 158. According to Hunter, Gazetteer, India, p. 440, the 
native tax is sometimes one-half and sometimes three-fifths of the produce. 
In Orissa, the native Raj took sixty per cent., and Hunter himself saw this 
taken in other cases. 

* Even as late as the epic, viii. 38, 17, there is a casual allusion to " fat 
peasant villages, good for a king to devour," which speaks for itself. 

* Compare Hunter, loc. cit., and Robert Knight's Land Revenue of India. 
These statements are not theoretical, but are based on what has really oc- 
curred. It can scarcely be doubted that the mild demands of the old Hindu 
kings were made with the knowledge that the middleman, who collected the 
revenue, took part for himself. One would think from the current praise of 
these kings that they collected direct from the farmer. But in fact they col- 
lected through " centurions," " thousandmen," etc., the numbers representing 
villages under an officer, as may be seen in their laws. 



244 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

Nay, it is by no means so certain that even the older 
Hindu kings did not at one time look on a rent of fifty per 
cent, as equitable. In view of the fact that there is no such 
legal provision, I should not insist on this. But as an inter- 
esting bit of antiquities it is at least worth mentioning that 
the payment of half a man's crop as rent was actually recog- 
nized in ancient times; though the practice is, as it were, 
fossilized in a phrase. This is the expression "halfer," or 
" half-plougher, " well known to students of legal literature, 
and implying a man who was expected to pay half of his 
crop for the use of the field it grew on. It cannot be said 
that such a man was a mere servant, for the native commen- 
tator is careful to point out not only that the " halfer " might 
not be a servant, but that the half -produce of this term cov- 
ered cases where the man lived either on private property or 
on a field belonging to the king, in which case he paid as 
rent to the government just fifty per cent, of his produce. ^ 

But not to dwell too long on a doubtful past, besides the 
heavy taxes of the Chola in the South and the Mahratta in 
Central India, there were the Moghuls. They held North 
India, and their grasp was tight. There was only one of 
them who was not a tyrannical oppressor. Nevertheless, 
when the accuser of England wishes to demonstrate the 
peculiar enormity of British misrule, he utilizes the eternal 
Akbar (who, by the way, was half-christianized), to mark the 
contrast between ill and good. Thus Akbar, says Mr. Dutt,^ 
took seventy-seven million rupees where the British take one 

1 The rent of the " halfer " probably represented the ratio paid before the 
period of the formulated law which we now possess. In the extant law-books, 
the term is usually applied to a servant, a fact that may show the condition to 
which a " halfer " was inevitably reduced. The half -produce rent of such a 
man, when he was a servant, might, though not necessarily, be offset by his 
rations. But the commentators, as already mentioned, admit that he may not 
be a servant at all. The facts that this rent is illegally high, and that in legal 
literature the name has become almost synonymous with serf, seem to point 
to older conditions intervening between the sixteen and two-thirds per cent, 
tax of the law-books and the unlimited rapacity of the kings who, in the 
earlier holy books, are told that farmers are only fit to devour. 

2 Civilization in India, by Eomesh C. Dutt, p. 121. 



THE CAUSE AND CURE OF FAMINE. 245 

hundred and twenty-four million rupees. On the other 
hand, Akbar was the only lenient Moghul,i ^nd it is doubt- 
ful whether even the laudator temporis acti, unless himself a 
Mohammedan or a Mahratta, would be willing to exchange 
the rule of the British for that of his predecessors, either 
Moghul or Mahratta. But besides this, all estimates of 
revenue in Akbar's time depend upon uncertain money- 
values, the relation between the tankah {dam or double-t^am) 
and the modern rupee and pound ; not to speak of the differ- 
ence in the purchasing power of silver and value of land 
three centuries ago. That these factors make the ratio in 
effect quite different to what it is in appearance, may 
indeed be offset by the statement that Akbar's tax was 
not so rigorously exacted. But at best this statement is 
based on a presumption, ^ whereas it is known that, of 
ail the Moghuls, Akbar was the most considerate of his 
subjects, and that under his successors the Hindus were 
simply pillaged. When Mr. Dutt says that Akbar's tax 
was "meant to be an ideal demand and could never have 
been strictly enforced from year to year," and so leaves the 
matter, we can say only that Mr. Dutt's zeal makes him an 
unreliable witness. The single fact (in his economic state- 
ment) that he here avoids all reference to the farmers of the 
Moghul's revenue disposes of Mr. Dutt's claim. Akbar got 
one-third; but between him and the cultivator stood the 
agent. How much did he take from the raiyat before he 
passed on the third to Akbar? Can any one suppose that 
the Zamindar who farmed the revenues, and became a prince 
in power, built up that power on a salary ? It is quite safe 
to say that, when the Zamindar passed over a third to 
Akbar, another third went into his own purse. Under 
Akbar, as under all native rulers, " Landholders and revenue 

1 The land-revenue exacted by Akbar was more than doubled under 
Aurangzeb (nineteen million pounds raised to forty-three and a half millions). 
Hunter, The Indian Empire, p. 356. 

2 A fact, however, not mentioned by Mr. Dutt is, that, besides the revenue, 
the cultivator under Moghul rule paid not less than forty assessments of a 
personal character, on trees, cattle, poll, marriage, etc. Hunter, India, p. 462. 



246 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

officers," to cite Hunter again, "had each their own set of 
myrmidons, who plundered the country in their name." 
According to the same authority, Akbar's tax amounted to 
about three times the British tax.^ 

But I must say a word more in regard to this native 
landlord known as Zamindar, about whom, for he is still the 
landlord owner in Bengal, the native reformer is wont to 
publish the most extraordinary statements, both historical 
and economic; for he not only holds him up as a model 
landlord, but as an original institution. One naturally sym- 
pathizes with the under dog, but it is a chill to this emotion 
to find it has been given on false pretences, and the discovery 
of one or two misrepresentations, even if not intended, is 
liable to breed a doubt of all statements not verified. In 
this regard the Hindu reformer, whether he speak from 
the platform of his Congress, or through the medium of 
a book, is peculiarly liable to shock intelligent sympathy, 
because of the national lack of historical instinct. India 
has always cultivated a kind of tropical history, but it is 
not the same species with that recognized as history in 
the Occident. In ancient days it consisted of extravagant 
stories about the vanished felicity which men enjoyed 
under the rule of still more ancient kings, and this 
conception of history still obtains, though modified by the 
influence of English education. But the modification has 
been far from altering the national inability to take a critical 
attitude as regards the facts of history. Thus, of the many 
Hindus who cite history to show how lenient were the 
ancient kings, not one, so far as I know, has ever called 
attention to those kings whose rule was to devour their 
people. In the same way, the native historians are unwearied 
in stating that "according to Megasthenes " the Hindu of 
300 B. c. never worried the farmers in war-time, and that, 
according to the same authority, the Hindu had no famines ; 
but they either are ignorant of or ignore the fact that, 
according to their own traditions of the same age, the 

1 Hunter, The Indian Empire, pp. 351, 352. 



THE CAUSE AND CURE OF FAMINE. 247 

Hindus are especially told by their priestly authorities to 
devastate the land and ruin the crops of their enemies ; that 
they are enjoined not to spare the land at a time of famine ; 
and that, in regard to the other point, their own literature 
shows that they always had famines. Megasthenes' author- 
ity also is not always credible. His countrymen said 
that he saw little of India, and his own testimony shows 
that in many instances his account does not reflect actual 
conditions under Brahmanic rules. Thus he tells us that 
there were no money-lenders in India, and that the Hindus 
did not even know what interest on a loan meant, — a state- 
ment which must shock even a Hindu historian, since it was 
made after the legal rate of interest in India was fixed at 
sixty per cent, per annum, and centuries after the figure of 
the usurer was familiar to the Hindus. ^ Or shall we say 
that the Greek portrays only Buddhistic conditions, too 
ideal for Brahmanized kings to maintain? 

The unhistorical attitude which characterizes the reformer 
appears again when, to laud the ancient regime, he tells us 
that the Zamindar is the hereditary owner of the land and 
always has been "from remotest antiquity," besides being an 
exemplary landlord. The fact is that this Zamindar was 
originally the publican or revenue-collector for the Moghul 
emperor, from whom he frequently freed himself and became 
landlord by right of might. All that can be said is that he 
was sometimes a Hindu. But generally he was an alien 
(Mohammedan) officer. When the British took possession, 
they ignored the peasantry and established this Zamindar, a 
mere factor, as landlord-owner. " Any one, " says Lyall, " who 
had money or credit might buy at the imperial treasury a 
Firman authorizing him to collect the revenues of some 

1 K Megasthenes is to be cited, he should be cited entire, and we should be 
informed that, according to him, that which the native reformer to-day insists 
should be called a tax and made below one-fourth of the produce, was not a tax 
but a rent and above a fourth (a fourth, with extra cesses), — points which, so 
far as I have observed, are passed over in silence by Mr. Dutt and others, who 
are perhaps a little inclined to draw on Megasthenes only for what pleases 
them. 



248 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

refractory district " (op. cit. p. 124). In the course of half 
a century, as it was known to all that this exemplary land- 
lord rackrented his peasantry, the British themselves miti- 
gated the woes due to his inhumanity as well as they could 
(having surrendered landlord-rights to the Zamindar), by 
enacting that the sum paid to the Crown by the Zamindar 
should be reduced, with the understanding that the latter 
should demand less of his peasantry. ^ 

The Zamindar, of course, saw to it that the first part of 
this new arrangement was carried out. He gave from then 
on only five to six per cent, of the value of the gross produce 
to the government : while he himself was and still is supposed 
to take only twenty per cent, of the gross produce from each 
cultivator, as rent. 

Now, one-fifth of the gross produce is regarded as an ideal 
payment for the cultivator, and since it can easily be shown 
that' where the British government levies its own tax it often 
takes one-third of the gross produce, the reformer would like 
to see just such a permanent settlement introduced all over 
India, a Hindu landlord by preference, but failing that, an 
unalterable rate representing one-fifth the produce. 

On the other hand, it may truly be said that the Zamin- 
dar arrangement is probably the most unjust, as it cer- 
tainly is the stupidest, in India. For not only are the 
cultivators deprived of their rights in the soil, but they are 
exposed to unlimited rackrenting at the hands of unscrupu- 
lous Zamindars, who can demand whatever they choose of 
the peasantry. The history of the native's dealings with 
his poorer brother does not favor the idea that the Zamindar, 
when at liberty to do as he pleases with his hinds, will be a 
shining light of benevolence. Stupid, too, is this arrange- 
ment, for Bengal is the Eden of India, the richest and most 
flourishing province, the best able to pay the government 
for its share in the increase of value arising from improve- 

1 The government was placed in the hands of Commissioners (with a Gov- 
ernor-General) in 1784, while the British Crown has been in possession of India 
only since 1858. 



THE CAUSE AND CURE OF FAMINE. 249 

ments. But of all this increase never a penny comes to the 
government, and when taxes are increased it is the poor 
provinces must pay them. 

Nominally, however, Bengal is the peasant's paradise. He 
has a benevolent native landlord and pays only one-fifth of 
his crop as his rent. He ought never to be troubled with 
famine in such circumstances, but this is only in theory. 

Without going into details of arrangements, it suffices to 
say that in the Northwest and Punjab Provinces the culti- 
vator pays about the same or a little more than he is sup- 
posed to in Bengal, 1 while in the Central Provinces and in 
South India he pays from one -fifth to one -third of his gross 
produce, sometimes as much as one-half the net reckoned as 
one-third the gross produce, but under such circumstances 
as, it is claimed, make the sum total (extra cesses, etc.) 
about equivalent to fifty per cent, of the gross produce. 

The farmer then (and this is the great example of the 
reformer) who in Bombay pays direct to the state, pays as 
a minimum what is paid as a maximum in Bengal to the 
native landlord. The difference is further accentuated by 
the fact that in Bengal the landlord at any rate, and it is 
supposed his tenant also, has always the same tax or rent to 
pay, while even in less favored districts the rate is changed 
only once in a generation (thirty years) ; whereas in the Cen- 
tral Provinces and in the Madras Province the assessments 
are frequently changed so suddenly that the ratio is made 
one hundred per cent, higher in a single re-assessment. 
Under these conditions a nominal tax of twelve to twenty 
per cent., such as is found in the Madras Province, may and 

1 In thus estimating the cultivator's rent, I accept for argument's sake the 
amount stated to be the rent (or tax, according to locality and interpretation 
of the Crown's position) not by British officials, but by the reformers, whose 
argument for reform is based on their own estimates. Officially, the cultiva- 
tor's tax in this and other cases cited is much less than here given, except in 
Bengal itself, where rackrenting is still supposed to exist. There is no reason 
to think that either side is right in details. The government minimizes its 
estimates, and the reformer's figures favor his plea. But in general it may be 
said that in North India the revenue is reasonable, if not so elsewhere. 



250 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

undoubtedly is in the end a real tax of fully one-third. As 
an instance of oppressive taxation may be cited from Mr. 
Dutt's last book the implication conveyed in a speech made 
a year ago by the Maharaja of Darbhanga, who in the Coun- 
cil of the Viceroy pleaded with the government "not to 
draw from landholders more than sixty per cent, of the vil- 
lage income." 

But there is this to be added in regard to the general out- 
cry against British taxation in India. The reformer calls for 
twenty per cent., but the peasant enjoying that tax already 
is as loud in his protests as is the peasant oppressed with a 
rate of one -third instead of one-fifth. One needs only go 
among the Punjab peasantry to learn this. The root of dis- 
content is not with the tax so much as it is with the way in 
which it is collected. And again : the charge is made that 
the British tax in general is excessive, whereas those who 
make it demonstrate, as soon as they exhibit their statistics, 
that even at their own interpretation of these statistics (I 
mean that, refusing to take the official statistics at their 
face value, they interpret them as really signifying to the 
farmer something quite different), the British government 
has already partly complied with the demands of the re- 
formers, and the tax which they ask for is the tax actually 
in force over a great part of India. Thus Mr. Dutt himself 
says that the state of affairs in Bengal is ideal ; that there is 
no fault to be found with the tax as collected in the Prov- 
ince of Oudh and the Northwest; and that even the Pun- 
jab now presents conditions scarcely open to criticism. But 
under these ideal conditions what has been the last famine, 
and what would it not have been had the government not 
had relief-works and canals? 

There is then, and thus far attention has been called per- 
haps too exclusively to this point (but justice should be done 
even to the upper dog), no cause of grave complaint against 
Great Britain for the manner in which, in general, the govern- 
ment has treated its Hindu subjects. In sum, in what has 
been said already, two misapprehensions have been cleared 



THE CAUSE AND CURE OF FAMINE. 251 

up. It is not true that famine was unknown in India before 
the British entered it. It is not true that the British have 
taxed their subjects more heavily than have modern native 
rulers or the Moghuls. It is even possible that they have not 
taxed more heavily than did the "sixth-taker" of antiquity. 

Now, however, let us turn to the other side. We will 
begin with the conditions in the Central Provinces and in 
South India. It is here that the tax is heaviest and misery 
like a plague has here become endemic. 

The first thing that strikes the attention is that this woe 
has fastened itself upon just that part of the country to 
which the officials point with the greatest pride ; where there 
has been the most exhaustive examination of conditions; 
where the sagacious (and I will add conscientious) expert 
has made his most careful analysis and estimated most scien- 
tifically just how much every field ought to produce and 
ought to be enriched by a rise in prices and by local im- 
provements ; on the basis of which calculations is fixed the 
revenue to be derived from the field. In a word, the British 
tax is meant to be a carefully estimated fair quota of the 
crop. 

Herewith we are, as it were, illuminated at the outset 
with the light of the knowledge that the red-tape of scien- 
tific guesswork is the efficient cause of the trouble. Subtract 
the actual average yield from the expert's prognostication, 
and the remainder approximates to the total of the farmer's 
misery. 

This misery is appreciated by the British, and is not passed 
unfeelingly, as testify the large sums involved in the annual 
remittance of taxes. But remittance is not made systemati- 
cally nor in accordance with any fixed principle. For the 
taxes (or in general the sums the farmer has to pay) are not 
remitted often enough to prevent the over-burdened farmer 
from selling out and giving up his farm, which, as farming 
is his only occupation, he surely would not do unless forced 
to it. During the recent famine, many more farms have been 
abandoned to the tax-collector; but even before the famine 



252 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

began, so terrible was the pressure that in little more than a 
decade two million acres were thus abandoned, representing 
hundreds of thousands of small farmers. And the proof 
that the reason for their abandonment was oyer-assessment 
is that more than half of these acres failed to find pur- 
chasers and had to be bought in by the government. ^ 

But before we penetrate deeper into the misery of the 
present, let us cast one more glance back at the past. The 
peculiarly simple and helpless Hindu farmer was of old 
guarded against himself in three ways : first, by the custom 
that prevented him from alienating his land; second, by 
being allowed to pay his rent in kind and in proportion to 
his crop (that is, if he had no crop, he had no tax); and, 
third, by laws which put some limit to usury. 

Now, as contrasted with this, under British rule, the peas- 
ant is first allowed to alienate his land ; second, he is obliged 
to pay in money, withal whether he has any crop to sell or 
not (in other words, he is obliged to sell his land to get 
money to pay his tax) ; and, third, until lately the usurer has 
been permitted to take any sum he pretends is due him, 
although it is well known that this particularly vulpine 
native is accustomed to falsify his accounts, which is easily 
done with ignorant peasants. 

This three-stranded rope first entangles and then chokes 
the peasant. The expert comes, says the farm must yield 
enough to pay a tax of so many rupees more than before. 
The sullen peasant protests, but that is useless. Comes 
rain, a good harvest, the expert is not far wrong; yet a 
little less is got than is expected. But somehow, let us say, 
the peasant worries through the year, though much scrimped 
and unable to spend anything on fertilizers ; a vital point, for 
starved land makes starved farmers. Comes next a drought. 
All the seed-corn is parched. There is no crop. The rupees 
are few, and when the tax-collector comes the rupees go. 
Then comes another drought. Already starving, the peas- 
ant is visited by the tax-collector, who insists on having the 

1 On these points, see Mr. Vaughan Nash, The Great Famine. 



THE CAUSE AND CURE OF FAMINE. 253 

annual tribute, perhaps arrears as well. The only alterna- 
tive to loss of the farm (for on failure to pay, the farmer 
is ousted) is the usurer. So with the government and the 
usurer together the peasant really has no choice. Thus it 
happens that already a large per cent, of farm-land is in 
the hand of the money-lender; that is to say, the most 
unscrupulous and worst element in the state is rapidly be- 
coming the real landlord of the country. 

So much the worse for England. But in the mean time 
what becomes of the wretched peasant? He would die, but 
that the same government that has kicked him out picks him 
up and puts him on relief-works, where he lives or dies as 
may be. 

Such are the chief strands in the complicated cause of 
every recent famine in India. There are others which, like 
these, the reformer imputes to wilful wrong-doing. Native 
arts, they say, have been destroyed ; the great industries are 
in British hands. So they are, so they will be, till the 
Hindu becomes the equal of the Englishman in industrial 
pursuits. Nor is it a crime on England's part that she 
does not subsidize native artists. Then they say that border- 
wars are a costly and needless extravagance; that is, a crime. 
But the point lies in determining whether they are needless. 
If they are not, are they criminal ? For myself, I think they 
are worse than useless, an exposure of India. But is not this 
a question of policy, to be answered by persons qualified to 
judge? Can it possibly be imputed as a crime that Great 
Britain sacrifices her own soldiers to maintain her prestige ? 

There are charges made against England besides these, 
of economically criminal character. But most of them are 
incidental rather than perennial. They are of the past, 
and though they are blemishes there is no use in dwelling 
upon faults long since committed and in part confessed. 
Yet not to mention them would be to place England in a 
false light before the world. Such are the exorbitant de- 
mands made upon India for the payment of expenses in for- 
eign wars. It could be said that India was interested in the 



254 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

Suez canal, but it was flagrant injustice to make India pay 
more than a million pounds, while England paid but half a 
million, for the expense of occupying Egypt. This injustice 
is frankly admitted by the British themselves, although it 
has never been rectified. Another case of the same sort is 
thus summarized by the Englishman who was Governor- 
General at the time (of the Perak expedition): "I cannot 
conceive any one doubting that India has been hardly 
treated. The law was broken, and the charge so made 
upon India has never been repaid." Mr. Dutt, who cites 
these cases, is quite right in bringing them up against Eng- 
land. Among many charges of more doubtful nature, these 
stand confessed. 

More dubious is the charge that the Famine Relief Fund 
was misappropriated. Certainly, the million and a half 
annual reserve was not forthcoming when the last famine 
came, as India, perhaps, had a right to expect. But there 
was a large margin of discretion left to those who had the 
spending of the moneys raised by extra taxation, and I can- 
not admit that there was in this case any criminal misappro- 
priation of a trust fund, as is maintained by the Hindus 
themselves. The fact is, doubtless, that the money was 
spent on wars and other improvements, unnecessary railways, 
and similar public works; but these were all provided for by 
the terms of the agreement, and there was no fund really set 
aside for famine expenses, only a fund from a possible sur- 
plus, which, owing to the fact that the money was spent on 
other things, for which allowance had been made, never 
actually existed. 

In the same way, it has been charged that railways have 
been built for speculation more than for actual need or for 
famine relief. There is, perhaps, some truth in the charge 
that what Mr. Hyndman harshly calls the " corrupt, unscru- 
pulous, and jobbing" Public Works Department has not 
been free from connivance with reckless speculators. Such 
speculation or investment, whichever it be, has cost India 
millions of wasted pounds. 



THE CAUSE AND CURE OF FAMINE. 255 

But these ills are ephemeral. More lasting is the ill that 
arises from the home charges and the drain from India in pay- 
ing pensions. Here, again, however, we pass outside of the 
category of "wrongs," although the native reformer appears 
to make no distinction between one and another of these ills. 
Money had to be borrowed to improve the country and now 
interest must be paid on the loans ; while the simple fact as 
regards pensions is that they are merely part of the salaries. 
In other words, no man devoid of common-sense ought to be 
made an Indian official, and no man with common-sense would 
live twenty years in India except with the understanding that, 
after he had given the cream of his life to India, he should at 
least be assured of the skim-milk on his return home. The 
alternative is to cuhhonize India, to appoint only natives as 
officials. But this is a change to be made with caution and 
it is already making. Nor is it a moral wrong to keep the 
most important posts in British hands. So with the cost 
of the army. No doubt India pays heavily for the rule 
that keeps the Sikh from the Babu's throat and the 
Mahratta from the towns he was wont to devastate in 
Rajputana. But she would pay still more heavily were 
that rule removed. 

Nevertheless, although the British are not criminally re- 
sponsible for the extra expense of home charges, any more 
than they are criminal in having in India a soil that through 
ages of misuse has deteriorated, deserts that ages of defores- 
tation have created, and over-population due partly to the 
thriftless character of the peasant and partly to the lack of 
wars in the last few generations,^ — they have to face the con- 
ditions thus created and to recognize that if the home charges 
are not immoral, they yet make a terrible addition to the bur- 
den borne by India. No one can demand of the British that 

1 Two centuries ago there was too much land for the inhabitants in Bengal. 
To-day there is not enough, because the population has increased six-fold ow- 
ing to the Pax Britannica. In this case, we may say that Great Britain ia 
responsible, but surely not criminal, in having created an over-population. 
Plague and famine have their terrible utility — for those who survive. 



256 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

they should settle in India, like the Moghul ; but no one can 
deny that the Moghul in spending in India what he stole 
from India did much to lessen the weight of his crimes. 

Therefore, it becomes a moral question with England 
whether there is any use in comparing her tax with that of the 
Moghul or that of the Mahratta, and assuming that her tax is 
just because it is relatively low. Much more has she to see 
to it that extensive irrigation shall be strengthened by laws 
against self -selling on the part of the peasant ; and, above all, 
that irregular taxation shall meet the exigencies of an irreg- 
ular climate. Irregular taxation may sound absurd, but it 
is the old rule, the only rule the peasant understands, and 
the only natural rule to follow in a country where crops 
vary by ninety-nine per cent. A fair proportion, even as 
much as twenty -five per cent., of the crop, when there is a 
crop, is just; but, on the other hand, the same rule when 
there is no crop. Even Dadaji, because the people were 
distressed, laid no tax for years — and shall England be less 
merciful ? 

What the Englishman owes to India is, in short, what he 
owes to himself, not only as the mighty lord of India, but as 
a self-respecting Christian. There is no use in asserting 
that a tax is humane and that subjects have nothing to com- 
plain of, when year by year they are forced out of their farms 
and starve perennially. Neither Hunter's complacency, 
Chesney's arrogance, nor the fair figures of the Statesman's 
Year-book, can alter the fact that something is rotten in the 
state of India. 

So far all impartial judges must agree. But let us not 
exaggerate. Threefold though the source of famine be, the 
three efficient causes, — lack of water where wells should be, 
lack of restraint where restraint should be, lack of means to 
improve the land, because the usurer devours the cultivator, 
— all these three revert to one, over-pressure. Unselfish as 
are the servants, the master demands wealth, and it must be 
forthcoming. Nevertheless, this corporate master not only 
has large desires, as he has great needs and selfishness, but 



THE CAUSE AND CURE OF FAMINE. 257 

he has also a conscience, the existence of which has been 
proved on many occasions. Furthermore, he has no little 
ignorance of how his desires are obtained. If it could be 
effected without serious loss, there is no doubt that, with 
the realization of what his demands entail, he would no 
longer exact bricks without straw. But from the Nerbudda 
to the Godavari, India to-day is a sweat-shop, where lives are 
sacrificed and men drag out miserable days, not simply be- 
cause God has sent a famine, but because peasants are igno- 
rant, because wells are few and usurers are many, and because 
the master, also ignorant of what his need produces, always 
needs more money. 

Still, although one rarely sees any admission of the fact in 
the diatribes against English policy, attempts have already 
been made to rectify some of these evils. There is even a 
law against the ancient right of the usurer, and this law 
confines somewhat the inherited power of this long-legalized 
robber; but it is not a sufficient guard, for the usurer con- 
tinues to fatten and the peasant to starve. Irrigation has 
done wonders in the North, and the British may well be 
proud of their achievements in the Punjab; but what has 
been done in the Central Provinces, and why not ? For what 
little has been done in the way of well-making, when set 
against what might have been done to save the peasants 
there, weighs very light on Justice's waiting scale. 

So much I grant, and I will add this, that as matters stand 
now, it is merely a question whether Lord Salisbury's answer 
to a proposed reduction of taxation. We cannot afford it, is 
to prevail over the moral instinct which should reply. We 
must afford it. England is master and can take what she 
will. But, believe me, robbery, whatever you hear to the 
contrary, has not been England's Indian policy in the past. 
If it had been, rackrenting would not have been stopped by 
England, nor would there be those easy taxes, which even 
the native agitators praise as perfectly satisfactory, in the 
North. If she has sometimes made India pay too much and 
if rigorously regular in her annual demands, England, on the 

17 



258 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

whole, has nevertheless dealt moderately with her subjects. 
Of the wrongs scored against her by Hindus and by her 
own people (for though I have cited the reformers as chiefly 
natives, it must not be forgotten that the}' are just as apt to 
be Englishmen, not to speak of those Americans who seem 
never to be quite so happy as when they are mourning over 
England), some of these wrongs exist only in that confu- 
sion between rights and privileges to which I have already 
alluded; while many are due rather to lack of familiarity 
with Oriental ways than to oppression. Do you doubt this ? 
I will make the statement still stronger, and it shall still be 
true. The British have done much to reduce the peasant 
to starvation, not only because of lack of familiarity with 
Oriental ways, but because of their sense of law and justice. 
Let me give you some illustrations. The British, then the 
East India Company, as I have already told you, reduced the 
peasantry of Bengal to the state of rackrented subjects of 
the Zamindar. Why did they do so? Because, although 
they had the power to take the land, they did not take it, 
but looked about for the natural and legitimate owners of 
the vast estates of which they found themselves suddenly 
possessed. Now you must remember that to the British of 
that day, — this was in the century before the last, — the 
natural owner of land was the baronial lord. And there sat 
the baronial lord in possession, drawing his rents. He was 
the Zamindar. Was it to the interest of the British to put all 
the rents back into the Zamindar's pocket and acknowledge, 
what the latter claimed, that he was the owner? Not at all. 
It would have been much more profitable to have ousted the 
Zamindar and made England landlord. But the British knew 
nothing for a long time afterwards of estates in severalty and 
joint-villages. They gave up the lands, as they thought, to 
the rightful owner, and therewith they relinquished their 
hold on the rents he drew, taking from him only a very 
small tax, and leaving him to draw a stipulated rent, which 
fifty years ago they fixed low. If the Zamindar has rack- 
rented his peasants, is that England's crime? Is it not a 



THE CAUSE AND CURE OF FAMINE. 259 

fair illustration of my first statement, that wrong was done 
through ignorance ? 

And now for the stronger statement that wrong has been 
done from a sense of justice. I am not trying to establish a 
paradox or whitewash the devil. The British for the first 
time, at least in centuries, have introduced into India and 
maintained courts of justice, where suits are decided, as in 
Europe, by the testimony offered and according to what is 
supposed to be the law of the land. Now, apart from those 
cases where injustice has been done merely because the 
British did not know that the priestly codes are not the law 
of this or that district, the Hindu usurer, in his cases against 
the farmers, had the whole law on his side. He could come 
into court with his falsified accounts and his perjured wit- 
nesses, and win his case every time against the poor and 
simple peasant. Did the British conspire with the usurer to 
oust the peasant ? No. They upheld him to their own disad- 
vantage (for the usurer is baleful to the country and the 
British know it perfectly well), because he was in his legal 
rights. Any wealthy man in India can get as many per- 
jurers as he can afford. Law-cases have been time and 
again decided legally but without equity, because the British 
have been unable to make their own legal machinery work in 
that country. 

As I said before, it is not the tax, so much as the regular- 
ity with which the tax is exacted, that makes the trouble in 
India. The five-acre farmer makes just enough to live on 
when he is lightly taxed and the harvest is good. When the 
harvest fails, he has nothing to live on. But the British tax 
is exacted, harvest or no harvest. Here you have another 
illustration of the neglect of native methods in favor of the 
more advanced methods of the Occident. The British as- 
sume as a matter of course that the tax is to be drawn regu- 
larly every year. It is their home custom. But the villager 
has been accustomed for a long time to be heavily taxed, or 
robbed, once every few years and then to be let alone, and he 
likes that way ; whereas he considers a regular tax not only 



260 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

a regular nuisance but a great wrong, simply because it is 
regular. He regards a tax anyway as a sort of whipping 
which he has got to take, and he would much rather have 
one good beating and be done with it, than to have a man 
come around and give him a blow at regular intervals. Then 
to return to the usurer, he gives another illustration of the 
British sense of justice. For why is it that the usurer has 
all of a sudden got possession of ten to twenty per cent, of 
Indian farm-lands ? How has he grown wealthy ? Because, 
while the old laws let him exact tribute from the peasantry, 
this was only another method of the state's getting its own 
revenue. The fact is, the state gave license to the usurer, 
but when the usurer had got the money the state made him 
disgorge. The Hindu law says expressly that when the king 
needs money he may take it from the middle-class moneyed 
men ; and nothing is said about repayment. But the British 
let the usurer keep the money as well as get it. Why ? As 
I have said and I think now proved, because of their sense 
of law and justice. To rob even the usurer is not British 
practice. 

You will, I think, admit that this whole question as I have 
presented it, and I have tried to present it fairly from every 
point of view, is an exceedingly complex as well as a very 
grave problem. It is one that every free-and-easy railer 
against England can, of course, answer off-hand. He need 
only take the admissions I have made, ignore all other con- 
siderations, historical, economic, legal, shout Fie on Eng- 
land, and the thing is done. But to one who knows India in 
its past and in its present, who has seen it and viewed what 
has been done there, > — and I will add, what is to be done 
there, — abuse is no adequate critique of the situation. I 
have said that what the Englishman owes to India is what 
he owes to himself. But the rectification of wrongs involves 
as much study as it does generosity. There are wrongs, and 
a great sacrifice is needed to correct them. The remedy is 
more than heroic, for it is the application of Christian prin- 
ciples to statescraft, withal at a time when it is especially 



THE CAUSE AND CURE OF FAMINE. 261 

hard to make it. I do not speak here of righting the wrongs 
of the past, but of systematically remitting the tax when 
there is a drought, leaving the peasant enough to live on, 
and seeing that his livelihood is not taken from him even by 
law. This means, however, not only a great reduction in 
revenue, but a slow bettering of the economic conditions. As 
to the former, it implies perhaps the sacrifice of some impe- 
rial power, and certainly of some imperial rights, for the sake 
of moral right. I may be too sanguine, but I think not; I 
believe England will yet make the sacrifice. As to the better- 
ment of conditions, I only wish that I could tell you half of 
what has been done already. England's officials in India 
have been striving for years for the redemption of a land 
long weighted with crime, poverty, and disease; a land 
divided against itself by caste and sect and nationality; a 
land of insolent aristocrats and degraded peasants, with no 
strong middle class between them. You have no idea what 
England has accomplished there. Her noble officers, English, 
Scotch, Irish, as well as the best Hindus, the toilers rather 
than the talkers, with untiring energy perform to the full 
and overflow the wearisome task committed to them. Not 
only have these servants of England established a mar- 
vellous machine for provincial government, which has not 
had its equal for efficiency since Rome collapsed, nor its 
equal for honesty in any system of holding subject prov- 
inces, but, high and low, they labor with the devotion of 
missionaries; and if sometimes they curse their fate, for 
it is not an easy one, they are indeed, profane or not, the 
missionaries of Christian civilization. No one who has seen 
the good works they have accomplished can question their 
zeal or their ability eventually to lead depressed India up 
to a higher plane of life. Reflect for a moment on only a 
few facts. Sixteen million people, formerly wild-men, now 
brought under the influence of civilization. What Raj save 
the British ever cared for them ? Slaves made into free men. 
When you read of the kind kings of old, remember that the 
slave population was not included in their kindness. Estab- 



262 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

lished peace and its burden of hunger. In ancient times, 
perpetual wars, perpetual robbery. To-day, over all India, an 
efficient rural police, unknown before. Shall all this count 
as nothing? England has made India as a whole more 
prosperous, more stable, more a nation, than the country 
ever was before ; given even her meanest subjects equal jus- 
tice in a law-court, — a privilege the native agitators may ask 
the Brahmans to look for in the records of their past and they 
will look in vain — educated the lowly and made the high 
wise in their own conceit; taught the Babu his wrongs and 
given him permission to proclaim them; lowered the taxes 
and raised the depressed and the oppressed. Never before 
has a poor man received sympathy from the ruling class; 
never before in India has a man grown rich with impunity. 
Let the barren optimist say that England has no mistakes to 
correct and no wrong to right, and 1 shall insist again that a 
scientific forecast of what a farmer's field should produce, 
with an imperial government urging the expert to raise his 
estimate and an unchained usurer around the corner, is a 
mistake and a wrong. But when the pessimist, that unholy 
person, says that the British have oppressed India as has 
no other Raj, and that all is mistake and all is wrong in 
India, then I answer that he neither understands the condi- 
tions, historical or present, nor estimates fairly the ratio of 
wrong and right. 

I make no charges of intentional or malicious wrongdoing; 
but I say that there are two sorts of people (and they will 
talk to you most on this subject) who, given the right topic, 
simply cannot speak the whole truth. One is a Hindu talk- 
ing about India, and the other is an Anglophobe talking 
about England. From the latter you will hear all Eng- 
land's sins detailed, but never a word of what England has 
done as standard-bearer of the highest civilization. As to 
such a man's views on India, the test is easy. Ask him 
whom you hear descanting on British wrong-doing in India 
how England stands in other regards. After all, he is a 
guileless, shortsighted person ; and when you have heard him 



THE CAUSE AND CURE OF FAMINE. 263 

explain that England has invariably done wrong, in all places 
and at all times and to all men, then you will know what 
weight to lay upon his one-sided opinion in regard to India. 
As to the Hindu, so extraordinary is his patriotic lack of 
veracity that he not only falsifies history, of which, to be 
sure, he is usually ignorant, but he even misrepresents the 
most evident facts of the present, not alone in regard to 
Anglo-Indian relations, but in regard to any point in which 
he wishes to exalt his native land. A pardonable weakness, 
but to what absurdity does it not lead? One of these vir- 
tuous impostors, for example, has recently informed us that 
the position of Hindu women is better than that of American 
women, though the press is scarcely done ringing the shame- 
ful but verified charges against the foul abuses practised by 
the husbands of Hindu children, the murderers of Hindu 
girls, the degraders of Hindu widows. And remember, these 
are not the sporadic villanies of such wretches as. Heaven 
knows, no country is free of, but they are deliberated usage, 
sanctioned and upheld by the very Hindus who to-day 
declaim against England. But all these points touch our 
present topic. For what power first put down the practice 
of burning widows ? Not the Hindu Raj, who invented it ; 
not the Moghul, who vainly tried to stop it; not the Babu 
and the Mahratta, who defended it; but England. And 
what power alone has exerted itself to stop girl-murder 
under native Rajas ? England, again. And what power is 
even now slowly but surely mitigating the awful lot of the 
child-wife, whom even the Moghul sought to save, and that 
of the child- widow, whose blood and tears have been the one 
unfailing rain of India for more than two thousand years? 
God and England. And these, my friends, are but items of a 
long account. Even if you cast the account in money alone, 
you will find that the Englishman has sinned less through 
cruelty than through ignorance of the people's ways and of 
their inability to fit themselves into even the most equitable 
scheme fashioned according to Western ideas. For it is 
false that the British tax throughout India is in itself iniqui- 



264 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

tous. Apart from a restricted area and exceptional circum- 
stances, it not only is a lower tax than the Hindu was wont 
to pay, but it represents a fair percentage of the farmer's 
income. But if you cast the account in other terms — and 
are we to look only on the rupees ? — what then ? I tell 
you, there is no Raj in the annals of Hindu history that has 
done so much for India as has England ; not her old rulers, 
for they ruled for the Aryan alone, nor did they ever have 
placed before them the complex problems of to-day ; not the 
Moghul, for, with rare exceptions, he never " considered the 
good of India as his duty;" not the Mahratta, for his hand 
was armed against every man save a Mahratta. So I say to 
the optimist: You are mistaken. The usurer is a wrong. 
To tax paupers is a wrong. No law is right, no rule is 
without fault, under which the burden of any thrifty peasant 
is greater than he can bear. But to the pessimist I say: 
Have at England if you will ; only good will come of it if the 
truth be told, and truly she is not impeccable. But have at 
England as you will, without knowledge and without regard 
to truth, and you make your pleading a veiled lie and your 
cause ridiculous. 

And now in closing I feel as if I should offer excuses for 
an address which I am afraid will have neither satisfied 
those who hoped to hear England defended nor pleased those 
who like to hear her abused. But it has been impossible for 
me to "take sides " on this question. It has too many sides. 
So I have spoken according to the facts as I see them, good 
and bad. 



THE PLAGUE. 

"Prevoyant que si je survivals a cette aventure j'en ferais I'histoire." 

This plague is the last of a number of such visitations since 
Christ's birth, the earliest of them, barring those of 166 and 
250 A.D. and the one that occurred in Egypt and Persia and 
along the Mediterranean literal in the sixth century (for no 
one knows whether these passed through India or not), being 
the plague of the thirteenth century, and the general pest fol- 
lowing it a century later (1344-48). But even in this case, 
though the two may have come from the same source, yet 
only of the latter is it known with certainty that it passed 
through India, having first started in China. The plague 
which ravaged London and other parts of England in 1665, 
resulting not only in countless deaths, but in important 
social and political modifications, may have been the plague 
"which few escaped" in Bombay, in 1618. It was in India 
till 1630. The same plague reappeared in 1684 and 1690 
in Surat, and in Bulsar in 1691. In Bombay itself the plague 
lasted from 1689 to 1702 ; while in 1720 Marseilles was at- 
tacked by a plague said to have been imported from Syria 
in silk-goods, though the opinion that the plague is not con- 
veyed by merchandise at all is strengthened by the observa- 
tion that in Marseilles not a single porter of the silk bales 
died of the disease. 

As plague is probably endemic in Egypt, it is doubtful 
whether its successive circlings there are not links in the 
same chain. Such a round occurred when Napoleon was in 
Egypt, and again in 1835 in Alexandria. But these cases may 
have something to do with the fact that outbreaks occurred 
in India almost immediately after each in Egypt; in 1815 



266 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

there was plague in Kutch and Kathiawar, and in 1836 in 
Marwar. 

Since then plague has broken out in Garhwal (Gurawal) in 
1852 and 1876 ; in Baghdad and other cities of Mesopotamia in 
1876-77 ; and in Hong Kong in 1893-96. In Mesopotamia, 
Garhwal, and Yunam the disease is endemic. In Garhwal it is 
a local disease engendered by dirt, and is the true maha-mari 
or Great Death, which is said not to be identical with the 
bubonic plague. Be that as it may, the plague has been 
called the Great Death by the natives here since its first 
appearance. Only the up-country hotel-keepers, whose bunga- 
lows this year of fear are nigh empty of guests, have euphemis- 
tically changed the name, and when one goes from Bombay 
into the Mofussil (country-districts), one is greeted with the 
absurd question, " How is now the little-death? " (echota-mari). 

Since 1720 plague had not desolated a Continental city. 
For sixty years it had not invaded India, but it is endemic to 
the east in China and to the west in Mesopotamia, it has 
always hung about the edges of the country and is supposed 
to lurk in some of the hill hovels on the northern border. 
What was more important, there was constant shipping be- 
tween Bombay and the home of the plague, and it was well 
known that the plague was a filth disease. 

Bombay is not the dirtiest city in India, but its uncleanli- 
ness is probably exceeded in quality by that of Calcutta 
alone. Yet Bombay possesses more dirt and it is more com- 
pact, as the city is the largest in the country, containing, 
according to the last census, 821,764 souls, while of these 
about 770,000, the native inhabitants, are for the most part 
crowded into an area of but four square miles ; and in some 
parts of the city there are 760 people to the acre, the densest 
population, it is said, in the world. 

In 1661 the city had a population of 10,000, and in 1673 of 
60,000, if travellers' estimates may be trusted. Filth has been 
gathering in the town for centuries. To the Portuguese, the 
town was still a ilha da boa vida, "the island of good life; " 



THE PLAGUE. 267 

but by 1706 Waite called it an " unhealthf ul island," and in 
1707 he alluded to it as "this unveryhealthful (sic) island." 
But the systematic accumulation of filth is a later growth, 
which arose in this way. The upper part of the city, which 
even now is swampy, two centuries ago was almost all bog. 
The town is on an island (originally seven islands), which 
like New York is pointed at the south and gradually broadens 
toward the north, the Battery being represented by the ward 
or district of Kolaba, and the Harlem Flats by the northern 
swampy district, which is known in Bombay also as the Flats. 
The lower end too of Bombay is rocky, as in New York. But 
a large part of the interior of the city is below the mean sea- 
level. Other parts formerly below have been filled in and 
raised, but not with sweet soil. For the present city is largely 
built up on hollows filled with refuse, partly undrained. The 
Fort, the southern part of the town extending nearly to the 
Victoria Station, then the native town, in the middle of the 
city, and eventually the districts originally outlying but now 
in the town were thus reclaimed. One of these reclaimed 
tracts, for example, is the present Kamatipur Ward, where 
the plague, when it came, raged most violently. 

The city grew rapidly and, as it increased, the city sweep- 
ings and other fouler matter were utilized to make new 
building-lots. Thus on a foundation of mud and manure 
were created hundreds of salable acres in Byculla, in Maza- 
gon, in the Oart (the cocoa-nut plantations), and still later in 
the fashionable northwest quarter of the town, Malabar Hill 
and Breach Candy (i. e. khinda, Pass) . 

This practice was discontinued in the middle of the present 
century, but in the sixties the city authorities resumed it, 
converting acres of swamp into valuable property by filling 
them up with decomposing filth. 

Such drainage as there used to be in the city was effected 
by means of a main drain about a mile long, which was in 
reality an elongated cesspool, since there was not fall enough 
to carry off the stagnant matter constantly accumulating in 
it. The sewage was at first conveyed into the Flats, then 



268 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

into the harbor. At present there are some open and some 
closed drains in the city, but there are whole districts 
which have none. Mandvie Ward, where the plague first 
appeared, has no proper sewerage, but only water-drains, con- 
structed in 1871, which are intended to carry off the surplus 
water that falls in floods during the monsoon season, June- 
September. The whole district is water-logged, owing to the 
constant silting up of the drains, some of which have not 
been cleaned for twelve years. Complaints about them have 
been frequent for fifteen years. 

The fashionable drive of the city is an intra-mural Appian 
Way bordered with graves. On the one side is the Bay, on 
the other the burning-ghats of the Hindus and a burying- 
ground of the Mohammedans. The heart of the city when the 
plague entered it — how shall one describe it ? The streets 
heaped thick with foulest stuff, the houses not free of it ; the 
native town, a labyrinth of malodorous lanes, wliich connect 
streets or run into other lanes, or form blind alleys ; and be- 
sides these lanes, very close tunnels, known locally as gullies, 
which perforate the filth, and are intended as alley-ways be- 
tween the tenements. These buildings are indeed not like 
our sky-scrapers, but, rising as they do to a considerable 
height on either side of a two-and-a-half foot gully, they cut 
off all sunlight from the narrow sty below. 

Bombay, like New York, because of its horn-like shape, has 
no room for expansion to east and west, and as there is no 
rapid transit the poorer people are necessarily herded to- 
gether, and they naturally prefer this to the toil and expense 
of a northern journey on the slow tram. In Calcutta, which 
is all built on a mud flat (or, as the inhabitants call it, an 
alluvial plain), there is room for the poor, and they still con- 
tinue to live, more or less separate, in small groups of low 
hovels, bustis. But in Bombay's congested middle the tene- 
ments, or chawls, as they are called, are as large if not so high 
as our own tenement houses, though within there is the 
difference between the Orient and civilization. There are, 
indeed, besides these structures, which contain several hun- 



THE PLAGUE. 269 

dred inmates, smaller chawls, holding twenty to fifty people, 
and in some districts there are single houses of the poor. But 
to describe the most characteristic of them will suffice. They 
all have two things in common, — darkness and dirt. 

In small houses, such as are found chiefly in the northern 
districts, the family practically live in one dark room, out of 
which, however, may open a darker closet for water-pipes, 
where washing is done in perpetual dampness and gloom. 
The floor of these shanties is usually of mud, and the mud 
is usually wet with all kinds of water and filth. 

The smaller chawls are built all over the native city. They 
are often situated two or three feet below the level of the 
street or lane. Not seldom is there a cluster of them, bor- 
dering a network of intricate little lanes, in some of which 
there is not space enough for two persons to walk abreast. 
Lanes and houses are alike evil to see, and more evil to 
smell. 

But of the big chawls, where land is more valuable (one 
hundred dollars or more a square yard, for it is sold by this 
measure), some accommodate, or at least contain, a thousand 
grimy tenants. These caravanseries are the especial feature 
of that part of the city where the plague first started, M and vie 
Ward. From without they are fair enough to see, and at first 
one is astonished that these should have been the lair of the 
plague, for if the street is unclean and the gullies on either 
side of the chawl are indescribable, the buildings themselves 
are substantial, and seem to be roomy. But the manner of 
their iniquity is this : The chawls are six or eight stories 
high, with a six-foot hallway from bottom to top through the 
middle of the house, where a stair takes half the space of the 
hall; and a series of black cubicles, eight or ten on either 
side, fronts on the hallway in every story. The hall on the 
ground-floor is lighted by the entrance doorway ; the hall- 
ways above, only by the dim light from below, or in some 
cases by narrow slits in the back wall of the hall. The air 
which comes through these slits rises from the common opening 
intended as a closet in the rear of the main building. The little 



270 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

cubicles along each hallway are eight by ten feet. They have 
no ventilation and no light. Each is usually occupied as a 
sleeping and eating room by a family of five or six, though 
sleeping-space is generally sublet to as many more as will fill 
the floor. The floors of these " better-class " chawls are of 
cement, not mud. The walls used to be of bamboo, but are 
now of wood and plaster. When the cubicles get too dirty, 
they are subjected, generally in view of a visit from an in- 
spector, to the gohar process. This consists in smearing both 
floor and wall with cow-dung, which is then allowed to dry. 
It purifies the air to some extent, and has a pungent odor 
agreeable to the natives. On this carpet of cow-dung new 
filth then collects daily as before.. There is in such a cubicle 
no furniture save bedding and a cooking-pot. The smoke 
finds its way out as best it can. In the corner of the room is 
a small receptacle called a nahani, pronounced nanee, which 
is connected with a down-take pipe without, and is intended 
only as a sink, but it is habitually used for other purposes. 
Everything to be got rid of is thrust down the nahani pipe, so 
that it is frequently clogged full. Since the only light in the 
cubicle comes from a dim, unventilated hall, this also is dark, 
close, and foul, a noisome den. The tenant will not seldom 
refuse to clean the hall, even with gohar, for he regards that 
as the business of the landlord, who, however, is generally 
content if his rent is paid, and cleans nothing. Nor will the 
tenants cease to dirty the gullies. But, in a word, to make a 
short cut through nastiness, the personal habits of the natives 
of the tenement class are not much better than those of ani- 
mals, which indeed share houses and even cubicles with them, 
and help to render these unfit for human habitation. Sixteen 
to twenty of these cubicles on a floor, six or eight stories of 
them, constitute a typical Mandvie chawl. Not the poor only, 
but also rich native merchants are found in such habitations. 
A few tenements erected on sanitary principles are to be 
found in the city, but almost the only houses of this sort are 
those erected by the Tramway Company, which is under the 
superintendence of an American, whose decent chawls have 



THE PLAGUE. 271 

been notably free from plague during the whole of the pesti- 
lence. 

The " gullies " alongside of a chawl are dirtied not only by 
irresponsible people, but even officially by the halalJchores, or 
hhungis. These are the regularly appointed employees of the 
municipality, night- workers, whose business it is to remove 
the night-soil accumulated through the day and carry it away 
in carts. Instead of doing this, they are apt to pitch it into the 
nearest water-drain or into the house-gully. At the very begin- 
ning of the plague it was stated that hundreds of complaints 
had been made in regard to this practice. But the Jialal- 
khores continued it long after the plague had broken out, as 
may be seen from many reports and complaints made at inter- 
vals all winter. These reports show, too, the general condi- 
tion of the streets, where cutchra (street-sweepings) had been 
allowed to collect for years. A month after the plague was 
known to be in the city, a native physician, at a meeting on 
October 19, thus describes the appearance of the streets : 
" The dust-bins are not only full of cutchra, but filth and gar- 
bage are lying in heaps on the roads, emitting a stench which 
is highly sickening." Another says: " Coomarwada Second 
and Third lanes are in a most disgraceful and filthy condition. 
The side gullies are full of all abominations, and the whole 
length of the drain is choked up with suUage and night-soil." 
Still another physician describes Lobar street, "where sullage 
water collected itself on the public road, and ran in streams 
on to Kalbadevi Road," and adds, " The attention of the Health 
Department had been repeatedly drawn to the nuisance " be- 
fore it was cleansed. 

Man having prepared a place for plague, Nature, as it were, 
induced the monster to enter it. But Nature had helped man 
long before. During the summer of 1896 the rains, usually 
distributed over four months, were concentrated in the first 
three with a total excess of twenty-seven inches (above the 
normal fifty-eight inches for the three months). This was 
followed by a partial drought in September and excessively 
hot weather in October. As a result the subsoil, though the 



272 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

surface was flooded, was less evenly and thoroughly soaked 
than usual. Consequently the noxious filth which had been 
accumulating about the neglected drains in the subsoil was not 
held thoroughly in solution, although the total rainfall for 
the year (up to October), 87.65 inches, exceeded the evapora- 
tion, and was in fact fifteen inches in excess of the average. 
But to ensure the health of the city there should be ten inches 
of excess of precipitation annually, as against the evaporation, 
whereas since 1887 there had been altogether only seventeen 
inches, including that of 1896. There was then, given an 
accumulation of filth in the subsoil, in the very excess of 
evaporation for a decade past the meteorological prelude to 
the drama of death. 

It is a curious fact, shown in the Bombay Observatory, ^ 
that there is an excess of vapor pressure about once in ten 
years, corresponding with the phase of " maximum sun-spot 
area." In 1896 there was a minimum period, hence evapora- 
tion was at a maximum, for it varies inversely as the vapor 
pressure. With a soil fairly clean, the effect of the decennial 
fluctuation is slight ; but when excessive evaporation leaves a 
soil surcharged with filth, there is a parallel excess of escaping 
foul gases and a perfect environment for disease. 

Ten years before the plague arrived, the death-rate of the 
city was but 24 per thousand annually. Some months before, 
it was 40 per thousand. The mortality had increased steadily 
for six years. In the previous year, October, 1895, to Oc- 
tober, 1896, it was nearly two thousand more than in the year 
October, 1894, to October, 1895, being in the year ending 
October, 1896, about 27,000. The press had raised in regard 
to neglect of sanitation a warning voice six months before 
the plague came. The municipality, however, had taken no 
steps to meet the coming emergency, although they had 
twenty lakhs of rupees at their disposal.^ 

1 These observations are taken from Mr. Baldwin Latham's Keport on the 
Sanitation of Bombay, and those in the preceding paragraph, with the notes 
on drainage and sweepings, from the Times of India. 

2 A rupee, divided into sixteen annas, was, in 1896, equal to nearly one-third 



THE PLAGUE. 273 

Under the government there is a municipal corporation of 
seventy-two members, the chief executive of the city being 
the municipal commissioner. Europeans are apt to neglect 
the meetings of the corporation, partly because their vote 
does not count for much when opposed to that of the natives, 
who have a two-thirds majority, and partly because they 
"have no time to spend on politics." Subordinate to the 
commissioner are the various heads of departments, for ex- 
ample, the ofiicers of the harbor, police, engineering, and 
health departments, with whom the commissioner usually con- 
sults, but to whom in the end he issues peremptory instruc- 
tions. To an American, the most astounding fact in the 
constitution of the city government is that the health officer, 
instead of being dictator, as he should be and is with us when 
public health is in question, is without power, being subordi- 
nate to the municipal commissioner, from whom he virtually 
has to receive orders. 

The plague entered the city, as nearly as can be reckoned, 
in the last week of August, 1896. In the first week of Sep- 
tember the health officer was informed of the fact, but, accord- 
ing to his own statement, he had already known of it for some 
time. By September 3, certain physicians who were members 
of the corporation were already treating the malady as true 
plague. 

The first cases appeared in Mandvie Ward, a district of 
37,000 inhabitants, in the middle of the city. It spread rather 
slowly at first, but before September was half over the native 
population had become frightened, and prominent native citi- 
zens were shortly organizing such measures of relief as the 
divines of the Orient deem sufficient to prevent the progress 
of plague. An exodus from this ward and even from other 
parts of the city had already begun. But the health officer 
still officially ignored the whole matter. Not yet had the 
commissioner taken any steps to prevent the spread of the 

of a dollar, though its nominal value is about half a dollar (two shillings), 
and it has been as low as a quarter. The anna may be reckoned as equivalent 
to two cents. A lakh is 100,000. One hundred lakhs make a karor or crore. 

18 



274 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

disease ; nor had the press spoken. Though the presence of 
the plague was known to many, silence was the rule. 

But when three whole weeks of September had passed and, 
as nearly as can be estimated, between two and three hundred 
people had died of the plague, the matter was casually men- 
tioned at an ordinary meeting of the standing committee of 
the corporation, held on September 23, when a private physi- 
cian first called attention to it, and on the spot named the 
disease by its true name. Referring to " the existence and 
prevalence of a dire malady on the Port Trust Estate and its 
vicinity," he said : " The malady is the bubonic plague. . . . 
I think it is caused by the putrid emanation from the putrefy- 
ing and decomposing matter in the sewers on the Port Trust 
Estate, which are choked, and can only be called cesspools. 
... I have more than once called the attention of the cor- 
poration to the great danger." Another gentleman stated 
that he had heard of the prevalence of the plague " about 
twenty days ago," and continued : " I at once communicated 
with the health ofQcer . . . and furnished him with the 
numbers and descriptions of houses where the epidemic had 
broken out. ... I am informed that between two and three 
hundred men have died from the plague during the last fort- 
night, and panic-stricken residents of the locality have been 
migrating to Kutch and Kathiawar and other distant places." 

The health officer, when he had been requested to make a 
few remarks, cautiously said : " In regard to the occurrence 
of cases of a peculiar type of fever referred to, it may be men- 
tioned that the type is of a suspicious character," adding that 
he had known of the matter for some time before any one had 
spoken to him about it, and that he had been taking " special 
precautions." It would be interesting to know in what the 
precautions consisted ; certainly not in any of the preventive 
measures usually taken to avoid infection. 

In regard to the filth spoken of, it may be remarked once 
for all that when the plague appeared in a new district it 
appeared in filth. Thus when it moved north and attacked 
the people at Grant Road, the first case reported from there 



THE PLAGUE. 275 

was "in a hovel in one of the rows of particularly filthy- 
hovels ; " and the first cases that were noticed in the city, in 
Clive Road, Argyle Road, and Broach Street, were in general 
in an unusually unclean environment. The only apparent 
exceptions were the cases in "large commodious corner- 
houses exposed to the sea breeze." By them, and they were 
many, who were pecuniarily interested in proving that insani- 
tary surroundings were not conducive to insanitation (for 
nearly half of the municipal corporation are owners of chawls^ 
and in fact some of the most disreputable tenements in the 
city are owned by members of this body), these cases were 
cited as proof of their contention. What the commodious 
houses of this district are, I have shown above ; the fact that 
a cold breeze made the half-naked inmates liable to catch 
cold, and that the plague began with pulmonary trouble, may 
have offset the hygienic advantage of salt in the air. But 
the accident of position was not really a very important item 
in a town where the vilest alleys border on the best streets. 
The Parsee temple near the Post Office is on a fine avenue, 
but beside it is a horrible little lane, and the temple itself till 
late in the winter contained a very filthy well, so that it was 
not surprising that plague broke out in the little lane early in 
the season, though the lane runs up to the west, which in 
Bombay is the windward side of the city, and the house of 
plague was within a few rods of a broad drive, apparently 
clean but invisibly diseased, like the temple, the worshippers 
at which were sorely smitten. 

Testimony as to the wealth or poverty of the first victims, 
as also in regard to the religious community to which they 
belonged and their nationality, was very contradictory, be- 
cause each reported according to the few facts he knew, 
or perhaps according to his prejudices. Only one general 
statement remained undisputed, and this was that the vic- 
tims were at first chiefly young people from five to thirty 
years of age. In respect of the disputed points, judging from 
the most reliable testimony given on several occasions and 
from what I heard, the earliest victims would seem to have 



276 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

been neither wealthy Hindu merchants nor Jains, as was vari- 
ously asserted, but first of all poor Hindus and then Jains 
and Mohammedans. But the item of wealth makes little 
difference, since, with some exceptions, personal cleanliness 
amongst the natives is not up to the standard demanded by 
hygienic laws, even in the case of the well-to-do, for often 
even the wealthy live in opulent squalor. 

Before the municipality had oificially heard of the plague's 
existence, the common citizens had invented, or more strictly 
imported, a cure for it, and made preparations to ward off the 
wrath of Heaven, whom they make responsible for everything. 

In respect of the cure, the natives had observed that the 
slight pain in the groin on the first day and the enlargement 
of the glands on the second were usually followed by high 
fever and delirium, and that on the third day the patient died.^ 
They therefore endeavored to check the appearance of the 
bubo by applying a hot iron to the groin and removing the 
cuticle. Acting on the suggestion of some Bhatias, who had 
described how cautery was practised in Kutch, the Indian 

1 The symptoms of the plague described above in outline were retailed at 
length from personal observation by Dr. Atmaran Pandurang in October. 
With the addition of other (bracketed) tokens, specified in a later report by 
Dr. Jas. Cantlie, they are as follows : " A peculiar discoloration of the skin, 
prostration, countenance stupid, expression of apathy, fever frequent and 
feeble pulse [delirium, vomiting, cardiac distress, terrible thirst], enlarged 
lymphatic glands in the groin, the arm-pit, and the neck, those in the groin 
usually forming a large swelling painful to the touch, the bubo ; no diarrhoea 
but bowels costive, liver and spleen enlarged, but no change in the urine in 
quantity or appearance, hurried breathing, not answering readily questions 
put, drowsiness running rapidly into coma and death ; but in quick cases, feeble 
pulse, hurried breathing, drowsiness, coma, death, without fever or enlargement 
of glands. Other cases take two to seven days ; quick cases, six to twenty-four 
hours." The " quick " cases, though infrequent at first in Bombay, became 
common in the course of the winter. At Karachi, on the other hand, the 
plague appeared at the very first in the quick form, and the first victims there 
lived only a few hours. Patients that recovered were sometimes left in a 
paralytic state. The plague which devastated middle India at the close of 
the seventeenth century was " so violent that in a few hours it depopulates 
whole cities," as is reported, in 1695, by Dr. Careri. It was called goli (ball, 
bubo) by the natives and carazzo (implying the bubo), by the Portuguese- 
Dr. Da Cunha, Origin of Bombay, p. 191. 



THB PLAGUE. 277 

doctors tlius put their patients to useless torture and cured 
none. But there were many quack cures which the natives 
adopted in lieu of better instruction, for the municipality 
appointed no special physicians to see to them for some time 
after the meeting of the 23d, and the poor, so far as the 
authorities were concerned, were allowed to die unattended. 
But from the time the plague broke out, the vaidyas (doctors, 
literally wiseacres) of the Hindus and the hakim of the Mo- 
hammedans might be seen sitting on the curb-stones, selling 
powdered lizard and other antidotes, not always so harm- 
less. For both in Bombay' and in the Mofussil, where also 
the plague soon appeared, it presently became a crying evil 
that these unlicensed quacks were murdering men with many 
decoctions. But the half-educated as well as the ignorant 
believed in them. 

On the very day on which was held the municipal meet- 
ing referred to above, where was uttered the first warning of 
coming trouble, there was another meeting in Bombay. The 
native merchants, more alive to the danger than were their 
official protectors, assembled at the office of a Bhatia and 
invited subscriptions "for the poor who were afflicted with 
the scourge," and for the performance of religious rites to 
propitiate Kali, the dreaded spouse of ^iva, for to her anger 
the Hindus attributed the plague. 

The press and the municipal authorities said, " Hush ! lest 
the world hear of it and business be injured," but the Hindus, 
and the Mohammedans also, were already crying aloud for aid. 
A series of religious processions followed. 

First, the Brahmans attempted to appease the wrath of Kali, 
and three days after the municipal meeting they paraded 
the streets where plague was well known to be at work, 
marching in solemn procession, clad in gay robes, and re- 
citing Sanskrit verses. It was supposed by some of the 
lower classes that Kali had been angered through the rejec- 
tion of the old metal anklets, such as the women used to 
wear, in favor of dark -green hmigris, or patlis (bangles) of 
glass, which had recently been introduced into the city. 



278 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

It was said that cows' blood was used in the manufacture 
of the new bangles, but very likely the whole tale origi- 
nated with the rival manufacturers of the metal anklets. 
However that may be, there was now on the part of the 
women, chiefly mill-hands, a general return to the holy 
ancient way, and a great breaking of glass. So, after the 
Hindu women had broken all their bangles, and the Brah- 
mans had recited their Sanskrit verses, the priests proclaimed 
that Kali was angry no longer. Then for a few days the 
Hindus believed that they were saved. 

But the Mohammedans, who do not believe in Kali, had their 
own rites, and three days later, that is, on September 29, they 
too held a religious service, similar to that of the Brahmans. 
For after a band of fakirs had assembled on the seashore 
near the Churney Road Gardens (by the Queen's Road) and 
offered prayer there, they began to march, and in an array 
similar to that of a Greek chorus, namely, in tiles of three 
(their number too was fifty), paraded together to the Field of 
Death, for so Mandvie Ward was already called by the poor 
(though the municipality had not yet recognized that there 
was any plague in the city). Through this ward, with heads 
uncovered and bare feet and to the music of a bagpipe, they 
marched first, and then in the same way visited in order all 
the other places where the disease was known to be, for it had 
spread even outside the limits of Mandvie. They thought 
that the holiness of their presence after the performance of the 
rites would tend to allay the malady, and, like the Brahmans, 
they really did do some good, for they helped to still the pop- 
ular fear. But to the stranger they were less imposing on 
account of an innocent error which they were led to commit. 
For though they bore themselves not unworthily of their 
sacred mission, yet the leader, who made the music, having 
been at some time, as it would seem, a musician in a British 
regiment, played on his bagpipe only Scotch jigs. He played 
with great solemnity as well as ability, but the effect was 
risible, and the number of the band also suggested comedy 
rather than tragedy. 



THE PLAGUE. 279 

The next day, for the native town was now in great terror, 
and those who had not participated in the first celebration 
were glad to take part in the second, the Hindus again en- 
treated their gods. But the chief suppliants were not the 
poorer classes, for only wealthy merchants and their friends 
and families were engaged in the ceremony itself, which 
differed from the former Hindu rite, and in preserving many 
ancient superstitions, such as those of holy numbers and the 
circumambulation of fire, was of peculiar interest. It was 
carried out in the following manner. First of all, at the en- 
trance to the lane called Dariasthan in Mandvie, there was 
erected a golden entablature of welcome to the invited guests, 
who were more than a thousand in number, and were to pass 
through this lane to the temple of the same name situated there. 
The whole rite was at the cost of a pious Hindu, who had bidden 
his friends to this ceremony, which might almost be called a 
feast, since, though the function was essentially an intercessory 
service, it partook of the nature of a festival, as will be seen. 
For when the guests had passed the sign of welcome and were 
come through the lane, which was further decorated with ban- 
ners and variegated bunting, they entered the temple to the 
sound of music, which was made by a band of native musi- 
cians. Most of the women remained in the entrance-hall or 
went to the galleries above, but some went into the inner 
temple with the men. There rites of prayer were first per- 
formed, but not such as call for further notice, save that they 
were invocations directed to the assuag-ement of Kali's ano-er. 
Then, however, the priests turned to a huge kettle, which 
stood in the middle of the square of the inner temple, and 
having placed in this the feast agreeable to the goddess, cocoa- 
nuts, melted butter, and rice, together with costly incense and 
many fragrant drugs, they covered these things with vermil- 
ion powder, such as the Hindus use to mark the sacred 
namon on their foreheads, and then burned all the contents of 
the kettle as an acceptable sacrifice. It was burned by seven 
priests, which is a sacred number. Then these seven circum- 
ambulated seven times the place of sacrifice, keeping their 



280 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

right side toward tlie fire. Girls also, decked in garlands, fol- 
lowed the priests, for Kali has female servitors. Then prayers 
were said, and there was a great noise from the cymbals, in 
making which, or other music, each musician strove to pro- 
duce as much racket as possible with his brass instrument, 
since in this way the lesser spirits of disease, as they believe, 
are frightened away. Thus this worship of Kali combined 
elements the most diverse. For with the self-same music 
they believed that they were both pleasing the goddess and dis- 
maying her attendants. There was nothing more done in the 
temple ; but subsequently, towards the cool of the afternoon, 
these people and a good many more, all wearing holiday 
clothes and ornaments, proceeded through the stricken district, 
priests first, then the men, and finally women. They thus 
passed by the way of Kazi Syed Street, and the Musjid Bunder 
Bridge, through Argyle Road and Broach Street, where the 
plague was worst, to the waterside at Carnac Bunder, and 
there, after singing and praying as they had done upon the 
route, they cast oblations into the sea, and having prayed 
again, went home. 

But after this there were no more superstitious rites for a 
long time, partly because to the Hindus so much of the 
following month was a time of regular continued sacrifice, 
and partly because all hoped that what they had done already 
would prove efficacious. Only the Roman Catholic and Pro- 
testant churches had services for the same purpose of averting 
the wrath of the Deity, first in the cathedral at Magazon, on 
October 5-7, and again on the 11th at the same place in con- 
nection with a High Mass in honor of St. Sebastian. And be- 
tween these, intercessory prayers were offered, in behalf of the 
sufferers from the plague, at the Protestant Missionary Confer- 
ence. But these familiar services need no description. 

At the meeting of the standing committee on September 
23 a private physician had demanded " isolation " of plague- 
patients. No attention was paid to him. Before the end of 
the month the Times of India, admitting that plague was in 
the city, called for proper segregation. This, by the way, was 



THE PLAGUE. 281 

the only paper in Bombay that then or afterwards envisaged 
fairly the facts of the situation. Two days after the meeting 
of the committee a prominent physician said that he " knew 
personally " of fifteen to twenty deaths a day from plague. 
No medical man of any repute denied that the " peculiar 
fever," so lightly treated by the health officer, was bubonic 
plague. Yet no arrangements had been made for a plague- 
hospital. The Health Department continued to pooh-pooh, 
and insisted that the trouble was confined to one communit}^, 
though physicians bore direct testimony to the contrary. The 
municipal commissioner exercised none of the powers which 
had been conferred upon him by the Municipal Act to prevent 
the spread of disease, though he was advised to apply for more 
power by the government committee appointed to inquire into 
the plague. The word "plague" was officially tabued. The 
little-death, as the hotel-keepers called it, was known to the 
Health Department also as bubonic " fever " only ; nor for a 
month after the meeting of the standing committee on Sep- 
tember 23 was plague under any name allowed to stand in 
the official records. The first entry was for the week ending 
October 20 (as " bubonic fever ") . Even after this, most of the 
plague-deaths were distributed under the captions of pulmo- 
nary diseases, phthisis, old age, and the like. 

The reason for this concealment was tersely stated in the 
municipal corporation : Bombay was a trading city ; knowl- 
edge of the plague would hurt trade. For this, amongst other 
more personal reasons, the commissioner and his subordinates 
concealed the truth. For this reason also the chairman of the 
Chamber of Commerce, a month after the pest appeared, de- 
clared that there was no such thing as plague in town ; naively 
adding that, as Colombo had already quarantined against 
Bombay, any one might see how inimical to the welfare of the 
city were revelations so untimely. 

The health officer's only move to meet the plague in battle 
was to remove filth. Other members of the municipality, on 
the other hand, were rather inclined to the opinion that filth 
was innocuous. The police commissioner, who had a great 



282 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

deal more to say about sanitation tlian had the health officer, 
made some remarks on the subject at the next meeting of the 
standing committee. He was convinced, he said, that the 
plague was due to sugar and silk. Date fruit came from 
Baghdad, and silk came from Hong Kong. These places had 
had the plague, and were responsible for its presence in 
Bombay. Filth had nothing to do with it. Perhaps rats 
were responsible ; on the whole, he thought rats were re- 
sponsible ; perhaps rats and sugar and silk were all alike 
responsible. He was not sure, but he inclined to sugar and 
silk; anyway, drains and filth had nothing to do with the 
matter ; but perhaps it was rats. 

On the same day, September 30, the municipal commis- 
sioner informed the government that in his opinion " there 
was no cause for very serious alarm." The question of rats 
versus drains was agitated for a long time in the city, for it 
was supposed that the plague sprang up in the town spon- 
taneously, and it was not known till long afterwards that 
early in August a band of pilgrims had come to Bombay 
from a Himalayan village where the plague is endemic. 
Therefore they may have brought the disease with them; 
but as to the other causes, as has been said already, mer- 
chandise cannot carry the germs, and the plague always 
sprang up in the filthiest environment. But rats have the 
disease, and when dead rats were found on a place plague 
followed, yet only if the place was quite filthy ; for dead rats 
were found even in the hotels without plague following.^ 

On October 5 and 6, respectively, the government pro- 
posed that the sanitary staff of the municipality should be 

1 Among the odd statistics published during the year it was shown that 
while respectable women died as easily as the men, the prostitutes were almost 
immune, not because the wages of sin was life, but because these women 
kept themselves cleaner, and were better fed ; for which reason, perhaps, the 
Europeans also were spared. How absurd were some explanations given in 
regard to susceptibility to the disease, was revealed by another statistical 
report which stated (in April) that, whereas native Protestant Christians died 
at the rate of 16 per thousand, Roman Catholic Christians died at the rate 
of 40 per thousand ; whether because of cleanliness, robustness, or creed, was, 
however, not stated. 



THE PLAGUE. 283 

increased ; and a Notification was drawn up by the munici- 
pal executive, the terms of which were interpreted to mean 
that the segregation of plague-patients would be made 
compulsory. 

This Notification of October 6 immediately became a bone 
of contention. It was six months to a day before the most 
recalcitrant natives were brought to see that English author- 
ity could enforce segregation. But this was under the pressure 
of a stronger hand than that of the municipal commissioner. 

The municipal commissioner received an extra grant of 
100,000 rupees for sanitary purposes (for which he had 
applied on September 30), but about a third of it was spent in 
making manholes. The remainder was sunk in work neglected 
for years, such as the excavation from the drains of a thousand 
tons of silt, which, though disinfected, still "emitted sick- 
ening smells," the flushing of drains, and cleansing of alleys. 
Most of the appropriation was gone in three weeks (Octo- 
ber 19). There was soon more muck dug up in the city than 
could be carted away. It stood for days heaped in offensive 
mounds, while the upturned soil reeked with foul gases. As 
to the segregation of plague-patients, the health officer had not 
only taken no interest in it, but had expressed it as his deliber- 
ate opinion that it was " impracticable, out of the question." 
In this opinion he was supported by influential members of 
the municipality. For instance, the chairman of the standing 
committee, a native Hindu physician, declared at a meeting 
of medical men that segregation was cruel and useless ; and 
the meeting applauded him. The most done to prevent the 
spread of the plague was to try and catch plague-patients as 
they ran about the city, and disinfect them. They were con- 
tinually flitting from one part of the town to another. But 
the arrest of such persons was always regarded as a happy 
accident; no system was employed, and thus from infected 
localities the fleeing natives shortly spread the plague over 
districts not before contaminated. 

The health officer's published statements that segregation 
was an absurdity played directly into the hands of the natives, 



284 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

who immediately protested against any form of general segre- 
gation, not only because in their opinion it was merely an 
English fad, but particularly on the ground that the holy 
privacy of the Hindu or Mohammedan home was thereby in- 
vaded. The judgment of a committee of physicians (who 
had been especially appointed to report and advise), to the 
effect that segregation was a necessity, here went for naught. 
Few natives have yet learned that there is nothing holy which 
is opposed to the public weal. 

Another religious phase of the opposition to segregation 
was the kismet theory of the Mohammedans, which has its 
parallel among the Hindus. According to this theory, it is 
impious to try and escape from the fate prepared by God. 
Moreover, it is useless, and hence precautions are vain. 
Amongst both divisions of Indians the practical result of this 
theory is to make them not only scorn segregation, but also 
disregard all laws of health. No importance is attached to 
the sanitary condition of houses or towns. Disease and death 
are gifts of God. They hold in this regard that Christians 
are cowards ; that it is a craven fear which induces them to 
clean houses and streets ; and care of health is an impiety 
which would obstruct God's will. 

No sooner had the Notification of October 6 been signed, 
and a few patients had been removed to the Arthur Road 
Hospital for Infectious Diseases, than the health of the town 
unfortunately began to improve. The municipal commissioner 
at once concluded that the plague was not going to amount 
to much after all. For a few days, however, segregation was 
enforced, though it was afterwards asserted that no formal 
order requiring such enforcement had ever been issued. But 
the natives, Hindus and Mohammedans, were clamorous for 
the repeal of the obnoxious measure. The health officer had, 
besides, enough to do in accomplishing the undone work of a 
decade, and could spare no men or moneys for other things. 

With the news that plague was to be opposed with segre- 
gation, and the ensuing diminution in plague-cases, hope had 
sprung up in the breasts of the European residents. More- 



THE PLAGUE. 285 

over, tliey expected much from a change in the weather, not 
knowing that cold aided the plague. On the other hand, the 
Hindus, who to a man believe in astrology, had their own 
reasons for feeling encouraged. There were five Tuesdays in 
the month, the new moon came on a Tuesday, the Sankranti 
Feast came on a Tuesday. When these ill-omened Tuesdays 
were past and the (Hindu) month came to an end, then, they 
said, the plague would go. But instead, more trouble both 
abroad and at home. Aden, belonging to the Bombay Presi- 
dency, Colombo in Ceylon, Naples and other European ports 
quarantined against Bombay. The merchants began to feel 
the pinch ; but their dependents and smaller local tradesmen 
felt it more. And, despite official reports, the plague kept 
spreading. 

On September 20 a man had died of plague in Mandvie. 
Four days later a boy was taken from this man's house to 
Kamatipur Ward. He was removed while suffering from the 
plague. In less than a fortnight Kamatipur, thus infected, 
had as many cases as Mandvie itself. The streets of this new 
district were indescribably dirty ; the gullies were not flushed ; 
the filth was so great that even the common people fretted 
at it. Complaints had been made to the Health Department, 
but up to October 5 the only thing done was to remove one 
patient. In this case, as in all others, the health officer, 
instead of preventing, walked behind the plague. 

Before the middle of October, plague was firmly fastened on 
Mandvie, the Fort,. Kolaba, and Kamatipur. On October 6, 
the very day of the Notification, a man came down to Bombay 
from Poona. He had the plague, which he had first carried 
from Bombay to Poona, and then brought back to Bombay. 
From this time on Poona was infected, two fatal cases being 
reported there by October 14. In the North, emigrants from 
Bombay had already infected Ahmedabad (October 5). 
Karachi quarantined against Bombay on October 13. But it 
was of no avail. No real quarantine on the railways was 
introduced till months afterwards. A careless inspection of 
outgoing passengers was begun at Bombay itself. But this 



286 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

did not hinder the exodus of plague-cases ; and till January 
the Mofussil districts continued to receive uninspected plague- 
stricken patients from the Presidential town. 

For no sooner was the Notification put in force than many 
of the unwilling natives, who would not submit to it, pre- 
pared to flee. Thousands had fled from fear of the plague 
alone, but thousands more fled in dread of the hospital. By 
the middle of October the population was already sensibly 
diminished. Starvation prices began to obtain in Bombay, 
and curiously enough, famine abroad, instead of deterring refu- 
gees, in the end helped to increase the number of emigrants. 
For just as soon as relief-works were opened for sufferers 
from famine, the day-laborer of Bombay could leave a town 
where he paid double for grain and lived in fear of death, and 
enroll himself amongst the " famine-stricken " in the country, 
exchanging starvation and fear for hope and food. 

So the lower classes streamed out of town, travelling by 
rail, by steamer, and by bullock-cart. The last was the 
favorite conveyance when there was a case of sickness to 
conceal. Stowing the plague -patient, the small kit of the 
family, and wife and children in the cart, the astute native 
crept out of town by night, easily escaping the vigilance, 
such as it was, of the police. All winter long these carts 
went south, crawling slowly up the Ghats through Poona to 
Satara, Belgaum, Kolhapur, and other towns of the Deccan. 
Others sailed away in private craft. To many it was merely 
a return home. For a large majority of the laborers of Bom- 
bay do not regard the city as their home. They come from 
the Deccan, from Gujarat, from Sind, to find a livelihood in 
Bombay, but " home " to them is where their fathers lived and 
they themselves were born. 

At the end of the second week of October the formal 
announcement was made that the plague had been brought 
under control. Perhaps it was so. But on October 14 the 
officers of the municipality, who, according to their own decla- 
ration, already had their hand upon the throat of the foe, 
relaxed their hold, and in an extraordinary memorandum 



THE PLAGUE. 287 

to the health officer, subsequently confirmed by the Act of 
October 30, decided, because of protestations on the part of 
tenants in Mandvie Ward who objected to compulsory isolation, 
that the terms of the Notification ostensibly compelling segre- 
gation " should not be stringently put into force," as its pro- 
visions wounded the religious feelings of the community, and 
many petitions on the subject had been sent to the commis- 
sioner. In fact, inflammatory placards had appeared in the 
city, tending to excite the hostility of the people against the 
government, while articles of the same sort were constantly 
appearing in the public native press, some of them ascribed 
to members of the corporation. Letters on the subject 
appeared daily in the papers. The Act of October 30 de- 
clared that " no case where proper segregation and treatment 
can be carried out on the premises will be removed to the 
Arthur Road Hospital," and that the health officer had been 
" instructed accordingly." Then in the first week of Novem- 
ber formal instructions were issued to all the executive officers 
of the municipality not to execute " stringently " the Notifi- 
cation of October 6. 

With the order not to interpret this Notification stringently, 
that is, to interpret it loosely, there was an immediate cessa- 
tion of all attempts to segregate in the hospital or isolate at 
home. There was no case where (in the judgment of the 
family) " proper segregation " could not be effected at home. 
In fact, any other segregation was regarded as improper. 
Only waifs went to the hospital. So ended all segregation, 
and instantly the death-rate increased. 

The last week of October had shown the result of segrega- 
tion quietly discountenanced, but the mortality of November 
and December showed the effect of its formal discontinuance. 
There was an ostentatious report of " marked improvement " 
recorded on October 24, before the order for segregation had 
been really rescinded. Thereafter there was a steady increase 
in the deaths from plague. 

It was most unfortunate, in view of the imperative necessity 
for segregation, that just this measure was most repugnant to 



288 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

the natives. They loathe the hospital. To eat food prepared 
by foreigners is sinful. Those cared for by outsiders become 
out-castes. The natives felt themselves outraged at every 
point. Their houses, when they were cleansed, were entered 
by Mahars, whose touch and presence are contamination. 
They themselves were carried to a strange place to be at- 
tended to by polluting strangers. The ignorant masses knew 
nothing of sanitation, but they knew their own ancient cus- 
toms and laws. To them all the decent etiquette of life and 
the religion of their social intercourse were at stake. It is 
not too much to say that the members of the chief native 
communities would rather have seen their dearest relations 
die than have suffered them to be examined by inspectors or 
taken to a hospital. And what they felt for others they felt 
for themselves. To be removed from those who alone in 
their estimation could with propriety attend to them was the 
passage not only to humiliation, but even to an indignity 
worse than death. And they proved this by their acts. The 
patients at the hospital, though they knew that they would 
starve without it, spit up the food forced upon them. Several 
attempted to kill themselves. But it was in the case of 
purdahs, the " curtained " women, that the national feeling was 
most outraged. That a stranger should touch such a woman, 
handle her, whose face even no man save her husband had 
been allowed to see, was to them as terrible as would be to us 
the extreme affront of woman's modesty, even the violation 
of her honor. This is, in fact, the only analogy that represents 
correctly the sentiment of the Indian in respect of medical 
examination. When inspection was insisted on without due 
regard to his feelings, there was not lacking the stern act that 
seemed the only means of escape. Thus at a later date one 
native, whose wife was publicly inspected on the northern fron- 
tier (not in Bombay, as was erroneously stated in the papers), 
deeming no relief possible, drew his knife and stabbed her to 
the heart, then smote the inspector, and tried to kill himself. 
We may say, " What fanaticism ! What bigotry ! " but it is 
simply the persuasion of convention long fixed as a moral law, 



THE PLAGUE. 289 

and it cannot lightly be set aside. Between sanitation and 
the ;purda\ however, there is no reason to find only a dilemma 
to be abandoned. For woman physicians would answer both 
the requirements of modern life and the demands of the 
natives. 

There is, moreover, but one way to meet a plague in India, 
and that is to have the different communities segregated in 
their own hospitals, the women under the care of women 
alone. Yet in Bombay there was no inspection of women by 
women at this time ; there was but one general hospital for 
epidemic diseases. The suggestion had indeed been made 
early in October that a special hospital should be built in 
accordance with the social requirements of the country ; but 
the municipal commissioner refused to consider it, on the 
ground that the plague was already under control. The first 
private hospitals were started, that is, subscribed for, about 
the first of November ; but the city authorities had nothing to 
do with these. 

But there occurred on October 16 an incident which, 
strange in itself, redoubled in its effect the fear of the native 
in regard to segregation. Before this he expected death as 
the alternative to being fed by strangers ; but now he feared 
lest these strangers should kill him. He believed, in fact, 
that he was carried to the hospital for one reason only, in 
order that he might be tortured and cruelly slain. 

At the south end of the Esplanade, where the road leading 
to the Apollo Bunder ^ meets the road to the Secretariat, there 
stands a noble statue of the Queen, gift of the Gaekwar of 
Baroda. It is a familiar sight to Europeans, — a thing to be 
seen by the stranger. But to many amongst the natives it 
was a sort of idol, for to them the Queen Empress of India 
herself was the image of divinity, a view held not by the 
uneducated alone, but by the more religious of the half- 
educated Hindus ; for according to their law-books the ruling 
power is the visible person of the Divine, whether the ruler 

1 Anglicized, with popular etymology, from Palva (Pala) Bandar, " boat- 
harbor." 

19 



290 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

be native or foreign. But in other cases also, as in that of 
great men to whom statues are erected, the uneducated, 
whether Mohammedans or Hindus, look upon the statue as the 
effigy of a sacred person, and sometimes put offerings of fruit 
and flowers before it, as the latter do on the shrines of gods, 
and the former on the tombs of saints. 

It was, therefore, not only with a feeling of indignation on 
the part of the Europeans, but with a thrill of horror as at a 
sacrilege on the part of the mass of the population, that the 
inhabitants of the city learned that on the night of October 16 
some miscreant had injured and disgraced this statue of the 
Queen. In the night it had been daubed with tar and around 
the neck had been hung a string of native slippers, adding 
deepest insult to irreparable injury. It was supposed at 
that time that the tarring of the statue was the outcome of 
disaffection created by the sanitary measures just adopted. 
The perpetrator of the deed was not discovered, but the 
act made a deeper impression on Bombay than the muti- 
lation of the Hermes once did on Athens. For from that 
time on strange rumors were ever afloat in regard to the 
object of segregation. Before long, in utter oblivion of the 
fact that the plague had been established in the city before 
this rascally deed was done, it was repeated about, and firmly 
believed by the many, that the plague had been sent by the 
Queen Empress in revenge for the insult offered to her statue, 
and that they who were taken to the hospital were taken 
there to suffer her divine revenge. In accordance with ordi- 
nary Oriental notions in regard to the punishment of traitors 
en masse, the native population conceived out of their own 
imaginings the fearful idea that the Queen had demanded to 
see the livers of thirty thousand inhabitants of Bombay as 
the sign of the death of that number of male victims. They 
said that patients were bled to death in the hospital, being 
hung head downwards on hooks ; that their livers were cut 
out even before they died, and that their bodies were hacked 
to pieces afterwards. 

Other stories, too, were widely spread about. One physi- 



THE PLAGUE. 291 

cian reported that his poor patients believed that the doctors 
in the hospital deliberately poisoned the sick to prevent the 
growth of the plague. That this tale contradicted the theory 
of revenge made, of course, no difference in the eagerness 
with which it was received and disseminated. Then it be- 
came known amongst the people that blackmail was practised 
by some badmashes, or knaves, who in the guise of officials 
would threaten to have their victim taken to the hospital 
unless he paid them cherry-merry (that is, a bribe) to be 
silent. The common people immediately came to the conclu- 
sion that every inspector who tried to get a patient to the 
hospital was a blackmailer posing as an officer. Moreover, 
they regarded municipal physicians, especially the European, 
as in league with the hospital to avenge the Queen, and 
would not call in any one to attend the sick. 

One of the most interesting superstitions connected with 
tlie hospital was the revival in Bombay of the ancient and 
widespread belief in momiai, or the efficiency of blood in 
welding together the foundations of new buildings. The 
Hindus were wont of old to kill and bury under new founda- 
tions of bridges, houses, or towns a certain number of victims, 
and to this day when a bridge is building in parts of northern 
India, as was reported on this occasion by various correspond- 
ents in the newspapers, the natives keep their children out of 
sisfht lest their bodies be used as momiai. The victims are 
supposed to be stewed, the top of the brew being placed on 
the foundation. This is mom-i-ai. The word is Persian, 
and designated originally a kind of mineral pitch (" wax "). 
In Bombay it was said by the vulgar that the hospital-patients 
were used to make momiai for bridges washed away in the 
last monsoon. 

Besides such idle tales, the belief was prevalent, even 
amongst the half-educated and universally amongst the igno- 
rant, that unless the relatives kept constant watch of their sick, 
the removal of the latter to the hospital precluded in all cases 
not only every further meeting, but also all further informa- 
tion in regard to the patient. And in some cases it was true 



292 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

that the patients were burned or buried without information 
being given to the family. 

Toward the end of October, riots began to be as frequent as 
were prayers in September. 

The Arthur Road Hospital, at that time the only hospital 
for plague-patients in the city, is situated not far from a large 
mill, somewhat back from the road, in a large compound ^ 
(yard) near the race-course, about half-way between Jacob's 
Circle and De Lisle Road. The yard is protected by a wooden 
gate at the entrance to the compound, and by glass-tipped 
masonry walls. On the afternoon of October 28, a riotous mob 
tried to force an entrance, but they were repulsed, extra 
police having been called in, and on this occasion no damage 
was done, though it was said that the mob consisted of at 
least five hundred mill-hands. These mill-hands, owing to 
the blackmail practised particularly upon them, and to their 
organized hate of the hospital, were the most dangerous ele- 
ment opposed to the execution of sanitary laws. 

The next morning passed quietly enough, but at noon an- 
other crowd assembled, this time numbering about a thousand, 
and demanded the reason for the presence of the yellow hos- 
pital-van in front of the building. It was subsequently said that 
the hour and absurdity of the pretext for violence showed that 
there had been no premeditation on the part of the rioters, 
who were mill-hands coming from work for their nooning. 
The sight of the hated van probably acted as a spur to their 
sluggishly ugly temper, and the appearance of the vehicle, 
which was not only rough and uncomfortable, but also of a 
forlorn aspect, was indeed not likely to allay the wrath of any 
one prone to criticise the Health Department. For it was the 
saddest-looking cart that ever carried dying men to their death, 
and the complaint tliat in the case of weak patients its jolting 
hastened dissolution was not altogether unfounded. The 
municipality did not even soften its roughness with rubber 
tires, which the general government, when at a later date 
it took control of everything, immediately did, as it per- 

^ Anglicized from kompong, enclosure. 



THE PLAGUE. 293 

formed also many other gentle acts calculated to soothe in- 
stead of irritate. 

But the cart of death at the door of the human shambles, 
for so the people named the van and hospital respectively, 
was pretext enough ; and had the crowd discovered what 
was actually the fact, that at that very moment the van 
contained the body of one of their own number, a mill- 
hand stricken with plague, there would doubtless have 
been much more trouble. But what occurred was that 
their attention was first distracted by the coming of another 
crowd from another mill. The few Sepoys (police) on the 
scene, scenting danger, attempted to keep the two gangs 
from joining in front of the hospital. But in vain, and the 
two bands next became one mob. But they did not injure the 
Sepoys very much, being not yet fully aroused, and having 
no particular quarrel with them, their own countrymen. So 
they let the police off easily with a few blows, and were 
crafty enough even to allow them to arrest one or two in- 
dividuals. For with these prisoners the Sepoys' hands were 
full, and they could do no more. But the two mobs, ami- 
cably united, now rushed at the gate-keeper, and by stoning 
him (they were otherwise unarmed) effected an entrance into 
the compound. Now, in the hospital besides the patients 
there were only the few native assistants allotted by the 
municipality to help the one doctor who was employed to do 
all the medical work ; for the hospital was not only in a very 
insanitary condition, but it was miserably equipped, and one 
doctor was all the staff. ^ 

The one doctor was not present. His Hindu assistants 
came forward bravely enough, but being greeted with the 
ferocious cry, " We will kill you as you would kill us," they 
naturally retreated, some to the dispensary and some to the 
back yard. But they acted for the best as they saw it, and 

1 The mortality of plague-patients at the hospital when most crowded, in 
December and January, was 74.12 per cent., as against 65.50 per cent., the 
average when not crowded. The hospital was a disgrace to civilization ; but 
till February it was not even subjected to criticism. 



294 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

characteristically telephoned, not to the police, as any but a 
native would have done, but to their chief, the health officer, 
and inquired vrhat was to be done in circumstances so un- 
usual, for they had never been instructed as to the proper 
procedure when people threatened to kill them. But the 
health officer rang up the police. Meantime the mob made 
an assault on the hospital ; though, being cowardly, they 
only stoned it. Nevertheless, as there was a ridge ventilator 
and holes in the roof besides, and stones fell thick, several 
patients were wounded, and in the end one man, who was not 
very ill and would not have died otherwise, having been 
struck severely, perished of the wounds. So the mob hurt 
only their own friends, but they stole whatever they could 
find, till armed policemen, and amongst them forty cavalry- 
men, arrived before they could do further damage. 

A direct raid on the police took place the same day on 
Tardeo Road, where late in the afternoon some five hundred 
mill-hands attacked two native policemen. The latter were 
supposed to be municipal officers engaged in ferreting out 
plague-cases and were at first merely accosted angrily. But 
when they explained that they were Sepoys off duty and 
going home, the mob thought they were trying to escape, and 
set upon them. An inspector interfered, but idly, and when 
one of the mill-owners came to the rescue and hid the men in 
a wooden cJiowky on the mill premises, the crowd grew furi- 
ous and attempted to kill them. By a wise prevision on the 
part of the government no native may bear arms of any sort, 
so that even a crowd can do little against armed men, and 
usually it suffices to summon only a few Sepoys to rout 
a mob of a thousand. The Sepoys were at once sum- 
moned. But this day the mill-hands refused to disperse when 
the foot-police came, and the latter attacked the rioters with- 
out avail. Then the mounted police arrived. Yet the mob 
resisted even the horse, who to be sure went at them rather 
gingerly at first. But at last the troopers, becoming angry 
in their turn (for they had been beaten back and the whole 
mob was stoning them and two of their number were badly 



THE PLAGUE. 295 

hurt by the workmen), rallying again, rode the malcontents 
down, and quickly pacified them after the English fashion. 

This was a lesson which it is a pity was not generalized. 
But apparently the English were shy of arousing hostile 
action and dreaded fanaticism. They had seen a little of it 
three years previously, when their cannon had to sweep the 
streets of Bombay and kill some natives in a race-riot ; and 
besides, there are some who still talk of '57 and think all that 
may come back again ; while there are others who believe 
that sympathy is better than force. And on occasion this is 
so, but never when sympathy may be mistaken for fear. With 
a mob and with fanatics force is best and kindest in the end. 
But at first the English bungled the whole business, not so 
much as to mobs as in regard to all their recalcitrant subjects. 
For, to begin with, they forced the natives into the hospital 
without sympathy for their prejudices, and then sympathized 
so with their prejudices that they used no force to get them 
into the hospital, and this, too, after the natives had threat- 
ened. So the latter naturally concluded that bluster would 
preA''ail, as it did for some time. But the lower classes of 
Hindus, both real Hindus and Mohammedans, can be con- 
trolled easily enough if they are convinced that their rulers 
will stand no nonsense, as was shown in the spring. As long 
as they think otherwise they will resist, for they are like 
children. 

The situation in Bombay, however, was extremely difficult, 
and while it is easy to criticise, it was harder to manage. For 
though the officials were English and affairs might have gone 
better had they insisted on modern methods, yet the govern- 
ment itself was in the hands of the natives, who, though they 
were educated men, did nothing in an enlightened spirit, but 
sided with the ignorance of their own people, openly protest- 
ing and secretly instigating resistance against every civilized 
means of meeting such a crisis. And so it was all over the 
country ; for the native editors also tried to influence opinion 
against reform and against the English, the two being grouped 
together. But probably there was more than bigotry in all 



296 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

this, for in Poona things finally reached such a pass that 
the plague was openly utilized for a little bubble of sedition. 
This collapsed, however, at the first prick of power, though 
not before an English officer had been murdered. 

Before the events of the next months are reviewed it will be 
necessary to consider a few statistics. By the end of October 
about eighty thousand people had fled the city and thus 
slightly diminished the total population, on which is reckoned 
the average death-rate of preceding years. The year of plague 
was remarkably free from other infectious diseases. Few 
cholera cases or small-pox cases and no epidemic of any kind 
except the plague occurred during the whole winter in the city, 
though small-pox was common in the country and country 
cholera cases also were often enough reported. It will, there- 
fore, be an entirely reasonable assumption that the increase in 
mortality apart from that due to the plague was not greater 
than that in the years before, especially as the latter was 
reckoned on a full population and the former is taken from a 
population rapidly diminishing. In the autumn of 1896 the 
total mortality for a week will then represent the average 
mortality plus the plague mortality, if allowance be made for 
an increase of about two thousand deaths for the whole year 
due to other causes than the plague. But this corrected esti- 
mate is hkely to be far under the truth when the population 
becomes appreciably diminished and may in fact be disregarded 
entirely from the end of September. 

Some such calculation as this, rough though it be, is made 
necessary not only because of the fact that the health officer 
neglected to make any entries of deaths from plague prior to 
October 20, but also because of the incorrectness of the official 
records. Errors, if space permitted, could easily be proved by 
setting the official returns against the undoubted statements 
of physicians. In some cases it would be seen that one or two 
physicians reported in their own practice alone more deaths 
from plague in a week than the Health Office under the con- 
trol of the commissioner recognized as occurring in the same 
week through the whole city. The only figures that can be 



THE PLAGUE. 297 

relied upon from September to April in the official records are 
those giving the total mortality of each week. 

In the following table the plague mortality is obtained by 
subtracting the " average weekly " mortality from that of the 
current week of 1896. The system here adopted was recog- 
nized in Bombay itself, and worked out by the Times of India, 
as the only one likely to give a basis for the investigation of 
the real mortality due to plague. To understand the table it 
must be remembered that the column headed Plague Mortality 
records the number of deaths above the average of the previ- 
ous five years, for the corresponding week. This plus is 
about the plague mortality for the week in 1896. About 160 
deaths may be subtracted in September as due to regular in- 
crease in mortahty. The remarks in the right-hand column 
explain the figures, which, as below, are those of the Times. 



Week ending 

Sept. 8 
« 15 


Total Mortality. 

593 
618 


Plague Mor 

621 
126 


tality. 


Bemarks. 


" 22 

« 29 


647 
720 


141 
193 


' 


No segregation. 


Oct. 6 


791 


300 J 






" 13 

« 20 


634 
606 


136] 
129 j 


1 

>• 
• 


Segregation 
enforced. 



" 27 698 2281 , Segregation 

> almost abandoned. 

It is unnecessary to dilate further upon the incorrectness 
of the official reports. A careful exposure of them was made 
by the editor of the Times of India from week to week as they 
appeared, and that journal may be consulted for details. In 
partial excuse for the Health Department it may be said that 
the municipal physicians would not recognize that true plague 
could exist without the bubo, so that the Department unwit- 
tingly called by other names a large number of cases of plague. 
But other cases were de industria given incorrectly by the offi- 
cials, by the native physicians, and by the families of the de- 
ceased. An official acknowledgment that the municipal reports 
were not trustworthy was made by the municipal commissioner 



298 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

and the police officer, before the standing committee of the 
municipal council, on December 30. It seems otiose to take 
other testimony. In regard to the numbers leaving the city, 
tables carefully compiled by the Chamber of Commerce 
eventually showed that in November, December, and January 
alone, 358,852 people in excess of the usual numbers left Bom- 
bay by rail and steamer alone. Previous to the publication of 
these tables there was only the haphazard statement of the 
municipal commissioner to go upon, who confidently stated 
that " only a few thousands " had left the city. If to these 
three hundred and fifty thousands be added the unknown 
thousands fleeing in September and October, the more than a 
thousand a day that were still fleeing in February, and the 
uncounted numbers that slipped away in carts and private 
boats all through the winter, the commissioner's estimate will 
appear at its true value. There is unfortunately no confidence 
to be placed in any statement made by the municipal officers of 
Bombay in regard to the plague. The official records consist 
in careless errors and deliberate falsifications. Oddly enough, 
this appears to have been the opinion of the very officer who 
was responsible for these misleading reports. For when the 
plague first broke out, the health officer, knowing that every 
one was asking why the city was in a condition so insanitary, 
and being eager to screen himself, formulated a bill of 
indictments against the municipal commissioner, in which he 
charged the latter with neglecting the useful advice given 
him heretofore, and alleged that he himself, the health officer, 
had in years past vainly urged several points ; to wit, the com- 
pletion of the drainage, the flushing of gullies, and the non- 
acceptance of the evidence of municipal ojjlcers. There were 
other minor points, but none so important as the last. 

The beginning of November was looked forward to very 
anxiously. The weather was normal, but the plague, which 
had already fastened on seventeen different districts, from 
Kolaba in the south to BycuUa in the north, was still advanc- 
ing. Its trend had been west, south, and north, and every one 



THE PLAGUE. 299 

wondered now in which ward it would appear next, for by 
this time all knew that the Health Department were helpless 
before it, either to control it where it was or to prevent its 
going whither it would. The fact also, at last universally 
recognized, that the official reports gave no real knowledge, 
in respect either of the death-rate or of the direction taken by 
the plague, caused general apprehension. For it was seen 
clearly that each fresh case of plague, when entered as old age 
or phthisis or remittent fever, if brought from a newly infected 
house or ward, increased the danger to the people in the local- 
ity thus infected, in proportion as they were left ignorant of 
the truth. The municipal corporation were known to be 
averse to sanitation; the municipal commissioner had noti- 
fied the town that his former Notification was not meant to 
be taken seriously ; and the natives unanimously opposed any 
reconsideration of the subject. 

But these were not the only grounds for fear. For it was 
pretended by certain of the natives that some terrible catas- 
trophe would come upon the city during the feast of Divali, 
dipdH, the " lamp-row-festival " in honor of Vishnu's spouse. 
The first and second days of this festival, at the beginning 
of November, were named as the days of danger. The 
prophecy was said by some of the Hindu and Parses papers 
to have been declared by Pundit Guttoolalji; while the so- 
called Maharaja or Guru, that is, the pontiff, of the Vallabh- 
acarya sect of Vishnuites, Devakinanda, was also reported 
to have frightened the populace by foreseeing the coming 
disaster. Both these statements were denied by the persons 
implicated, but the hint of harm given by the papers was 
enough. The common people believed that some untoward 
event, even greater than the plague, was about to happen, and 
that, in the quaint imagery of the Orient, " the Sirkar (imperial 
goverinnent) had withdrawn its umbrella from over their 
heads." 

As a foretaste of new trouble, three great conflagrations 
occurred in the city. They were regarded as ominous. As 
Divali drew near, the crowds of terrified natives fleeing from 



300 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

town exceeded every precedent. They that were well went, 
taking with them, if they could, their sick ; and many plague- 
patients easily succeeded in escaping the notice of the officials, 
for the rush to be saved was greater than the police could 
oppose. Every train was full, and every steamer; private 
craft and bullock-carts took away thousands. 

Ordinarily, Divali is celebrated with brilhant illuminations. 
Lamps are burning everywhere, fireworks are set off, the 
whole town is a blaze of Hght. This year it was to be a dark 
failure. Fear reigned. One fiction fought another. Now 
the story was rife that there was to be a general slaughter of 
the native inhabitants, ordered by the Sirkar to avenge the 
Queen for the insult to her statue. Again the Bazaar (native 
town) was horrified by specific prophecies of earthquakes and 
universal ruin to take place during the festival. Scarcely an 
hour passed that some fresh rumor did not terrify the Indian's 
credulous heart as he heard of new woes coming. Before the 
fatal days arrived (November 2 and 3 ), in fact, before the 
month began, half the population had left town, while half 
of them that remained trembled because they had not done 
likewise. When Divali dawned the natives hardly dared to 
breathco 

But the days of harm passed harmlessly. No earthquake 
shook the island ; there was no massacre of natives ; and the 
children of the Orient breathed again. Half of them that had 
fled without preparation in the final panic returned within 
a week and packed their things together, encouraged, but 
ready to flee again at a moment's warning. 

The death-rate increased steadily. About a quarter of the 
population was gone from town. Silent witnesses to this 
fact were the empty houses, empty streets, wellnigh empty 
wards. Shops began to be closed everywhere ; the busiest lanes 
were still. An irregular exodus began again. Long proces- 
sions passed through the streets. They consisted of refugees 
escaping in a slow unbroken stream. Most of them were un- 
able to read English; they did not know that the official 
reports were most encouraging. They knew only that their 



THE PLAGUE. 301 

friends and neighbors were dying as they had never died 
before, and that plague ruled the town. So passed Novem- 
ber's dreary days. 

But Mandvie Ward was now free of disease. No death 
had occurred since November 21. The health officer said 
that he had got control of that district. As a matter of fact 
the plague had killed those whom it had caught and the rest 
of the inhabitants had run away. The whole ward was 
practically deserted. There was nothing more there for the 
plague and it went elsewhere. 

The heaviest mortality in the city was among the Mahars 
first (the cleansers of filth), and then the Jains, who now died 
at a greater rate than did the Mohammedans. Till the end 
of January the mortality among the Mohammedans remained 
higher than among the Hindus. 

The city corporation, who were pleased to shift upon the 
health officer the blame for apathy in the past and ignorance 
in the present, signalized their appreciation of the gravity of 
the situation by creating toward the end of November eight 
new health officers. But they did no good, for they were sub- 
ordinates. The hospital at this time was strengthened by the 
appointment of some new assistants. Six assistant surgeons 
were also appointed. A sub-committee already had in hand 
the re-organization of the Health Department, but the cor- 
poration did not wait for its report, for in this week the 
mortality was 760, or 314 above the average. By this time 
most of the native medical men had run away. The native 
members of the corporation also ran away to the hills for 
safety, returning to town only to attend the meetings. The 
loq^uacious leaders of the people, the orators against segre- 
gation, took to flight, too. Holding the fort was left to the 
Enghsh. November's record is as follows : 



Week ending 


Total Mortality. 


Plague Mortality. 


No\r. 3 


668 


225 


" 10 


623 


174 


« 17 


704 


242 


" 24 


760 


314 



302 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

To explain the higher death-rate, the Health Department, 
amongst other curiosities of statistics, gave 127 deaths in the 
week ending November 24 to phthisis alone, double the 
usual amount, though reputable doctors knew of no increase 
in that disease. According to the same official authority, 161, 
more than double the average, died of remittent fever in the 
week ending November 17, and just 161 in the next week. 
This monotonous disease had already carried off 107 people 
in the week ending November 3, and just 107 again in the 
week ending November 10. But, as I have said, epidemic 
diseases other than the plague were rarer than usual. The 
plague seemed to absorb every other ilhiess. The fewer 
deaths in the week after Divali are due to the tumult of exodus 
at the last minute and the slow return in the next few days 
of half those who had gone. The figures represent a sudden 
drop in the population. 

Though segregation was officially abolished, inspection 
was not. Concealment of cases was still regularly practised. 
No punishment rewarded the concealer when the act was 
discovered. 

By the beginning of the next month there were about forty- 
five deaths a day from plague. One physician alone treated 
one hundred cases in the first week of winter. 

December was a month of terror. In the first week the 
mortality was the greatest ever known in the city, exceeding 
even that of any week of the great famine of 1877. From 
772 deaths (plague mortality, 315, the record for the week 
ending December 1), the mortality rose to 1051, an increase 
of 279 in one week, and 591 above the average taken on 
a full population. Even official returns recorded 55 deaths 
in one day from bubonic fever. The daily average due 
to plague was really about 84. An appeal was made that 
segregation might be tried again, but the municipal commis- 
sion, despite signs of yielding on the part of some of the 
natives, made no effort to re-introduce the measure. Kamati- 
pur, which with its 30,000 inhabitants had now taken the 
place of Mandvie as the headquarters of the Great Death, 



THE PLAGUE. 303 

more than quadrupled its mortality in eight days, and soon 
there were few houses in the whole district that had not the 
red ring of death upon their front. The commissioner in 
this month had ordered the red ring to be painted upon every 
house where a death from plague occurred. Some of the 
houses had half a dozen such rings. Later on some had 
many more than this. One had more than thirty. Deaths 
from other causes were marked with a cross. For every 
cross appeared a dozen rings. 

By the middle of the month, the different sects of Jains, 
Parsees, Hindus, and Mohammedans, had committees in hand 
to see to the erection of special sectarian hospitals, which the 
more enhghtened leaders of the different communities had per- 
suaded them to agree to as a substitute for the hated Arthur 
Koad Hospital. The Jain hospital was ready first, early in 
the month. The Parsee hospital was formally opened on 
December 18. Some of these hospitals, however, were long 
in building and all were long in filling, for the natives did not 
like them. That of the Khojas was not ready till March ; 
that of the Bhatias was not even begun till then. These 
hospitals, though that of the Parsees was better built and well 
appointed, were usually cheap buildings of mats and bamboo. 
Voluntary segregation was now recommended even by the 
natives, though at a meeting held December 11 they still pro- 
tested against enforced segregation. Voluntary segregation 
was, in point of fact, all that was necessary, but the trouble 
was that it could not be enforced! Very few went into 
the " voluntary " hospitals. The Governor placed at the dis- 
posal of the municipality the park connected with the Govern- 
ment House at Parol for use as a place to build temporary 
hospitals; and subsequently an annex to the Arthur Road 
Hospital was erected there. But neither the commissioner 
nor the health officer liked these voluntary hospitals. They 
sniffed at Parol park and said it was " insanitary." The cor- 
poration did nothing to encourage even voluntary segregation. 
In all this time of bitter distress the native members did not 
raise one finger to aid or instruct their fellow-citizens. Some 



304 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

were apathetic; some were intolerant of sanitary reform. 
They met to jest and denounce sanitation. Not a single radical 
measure was inaugurated by them during the whole course 
of the winter. 

The commissioners on December 16 asked for and, of course, 
obtained one hundred and fifty thousand rupees in addition 
to the original one hundred thousand granted on October 5. 
The Health Department still continued to oppose segregation, 
flush drains, and shovel up the filth of the last ten years. 
The corporation were at length induced to pass a resolution, 
December 17, to remove the town sweepings to Chimbore, 
instead of emptying them into the harbor. But the corpora- 
tion did no more. They could not, at any rate, decide how 
to effect this reform, and, in fact, never did anything more 
about it till months afterwards, when the Governor told them 
that they must. 

The plague struck further north. Localities hitherto un- 
affected now fell into its power. Outside of the city, sundry 
new towns of the Presidency reported that plague had ap- 
peared. To the south, Poona, the rest of the Deccan, and 
even the Mysore territory beyond it; to the north, Thana, 
Broach, Ahmedabad, Karachi, — were now infected. In Goa 
the authorities decreed as a sanitary measure that the bodies 
of all who had died of plague should be burned, not buried, 
whether Hindus, Mohammedans, Jews, or Christians.^ The 
Patriarch Archbishop thundered against the law as unchris- 
tian, and the Mohammedan howled. But the law stood for a 
time and plague obtained no great hold there, till the Arch- 
bishop's thunder at last frightened the authorities. They 
yielded the point. Then the plague increased in Goa. 

This question touched Bombay also. Intramural graves, 
often not covered with earth enough to prevent the jackal's 
robbery, sometimes but a few inches deep, seldom more than 

1 Only the Hindus, and not all of them, burn their dead. The Parsees 
expose them on the Towers. Some poor Hindus bury the dead, as do the 
Mohammedans. Cremation is often waived in the case of venerated Hindus, 
Swamis and the like, and their tombs become shrines. 



THE PLAGUE. 305 

two and a half feet, thousands of such graves, corpses buried 
one on top of another, in graveyards crowded, and to a great 
extent over-crowded, with the corpses of plague-stricken 
Mohammedans, in short, a trench of shallow graves to the 
windward of the city from its middle to its northern limit, — - 
such was the state of affairs in Bombay. For not only were 
there two such burying-grounds, one at Grant Road and one 
on the Queen's Road, but the low-caste Hindus that bury 
their dead had a third intramural ground at Haines Road. 
The Christianized Hindus, chiefly ignorant fishermen, had still 
a fourth, though undetermined ground ; for they dug shallow 
pits near their houses and buried their dead there. For thirty 
years the closing of the Mohammedan grounds had been de- 
manded in the interest of public health. The health officer 
himself said he thought that they "had been filled perhaps 
twenty times." At a later date, January 7, reference was 
made at a meeting of the corporation to graves where corpses 
were dug up and new interments made in rapid succession. 
The question of closing these grounds was one very vital to 
the interest of the city. There actually was a new ground 
which had been reserved for the Mohammedans for three years 
at Tank Bunder, but it was not made ready till late in January. 
Then the Mohammedans were politely asked to use it, but they 
angrily refused to do so. It was not till April that the ground 
at Grant Road was closed, but this was not done by the muni- 
cipahty. Even the crematory grounds were in bad condition. 
It was said that bodies lay unburned for days at Sonapur 
(December 10). The same statement was made afterwards in 
regard to the Worli ground, but the health officer denied it. 

It was also said that the vultures of the Dakhmas or 
Towers of Silence, owing to the surplus of Parsee food given 
them in December, sometimes refused to do their office. These 
Towers rise like huge oil-tanks above Malabar Hill, hideous 
themselves but set in luxuriant beauty of scenery. The first, 
Kapiskhan's, can accommodate 237 bodies, and is used mainly 
by the Shenshai Parsees. The second, Banaji's, can accom- 
modate as many more, and is used mainly by the Iranees and 

20 



306 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

Kadimi Parsees, though it is open to the Shenshai also. The 
two Towers of Anjuman and Manekji Sheth will hold 262 
and 141 bodies, respectively ; while the Modi's Tower is for 
the family of the founder only.i Most of the bodies are 
devoured on Kapiskhan's Towers. According to the report 
pubhshed at the time in a local paper, there are between 
three and four hundred vultures, but many of them were 
busy among the shallow graves in the neighborhood and per- 
haps for this reason none was so voracious as usual. Whether 
any dead bodies actually remained uneaten on the Towers 
cannot be known. The report was denied by the Parsee 
priests, and only Parsees are admitted to the Towers. 

There was at this time and afterwards no Httle distress on 
account of the increasing lack both of those whose business it 
is to bear the corpses to the crematory or cemetery, and of 
those who there receive them. And in this distress the Parsees 
shared, for though they had enough nasasalars, who carry the 
corpses into the Towers, yet there were not enough khandias, 
who bring them up to the Towers. Much unhappiness was 
caused by this, as well as by the absence of other requisites in 
the final care for the deceased, and even by the cost of fuel 
wherewith to burn the dead. For everything was dearer than 
usual, owing to the famine and the lack of laborers, and so 
great an amount of wood was required for the consumption of 
so many bodies that the price rose, and the poor had often to 
pay their last coppers to get sufficient fuel for their need. As 
an indication of the scarcity that resulted from extra demand, 
but also as a proof of the great number that died, one religious 
community alone used seven and a half times as much fuel 
per week for burning their dead as they do ordinarily ; nor was 
it, as compared with others, a community very heavily smit- 
ten by the plague. Moreover, this was when less fuel than 
usual was burned for any one funeral, since even the rich 
economized and the poor used only as much as decency 

^ This was the first Tower built in the city, in 1670. Two more are men- 
tioned by Dr. Da Cunha, Origin of Bombay, p. 299, wliere Kapiskhan appears 
as Kapuskao, and Anjuman's Tower bears a different name. 



THE PLAGUE. 307 

required, and wlien the city was emptied of many of its 
inhabitants. 

For between the middle of December and its awful close 
some third of the natives had again left town. In many ways 
this was the most painful as well as the most exciting period 
in the progress of the plague. For the mortality leaped up 
higher and higher as the colder weather strengthened the 
malady, and all classes were fleeing, the wealthy with the poor. 
The latter packed their little bundles, and with their goods on 
their head and their children in their arms went out for the 
last time, some, already infected, to die of the plague, some to 
subsist on charity, some to starve, and some to live on hoarded 
or borrowed money, till spring and the dechne of the disease 
moved them to return. But some, and amongst them even 
former pohcemen of the town, became robbers and added to 
the terrors of the year of plague and famine by swelling the 
bands of dacoits, brigands, who, during this winter especially, 
ravaged the country from Dellii to Hyderabad. 

But the wealthy natives who hitherto had lingered (because 
they feared to leave their houses and' goods in a city so ham- 
pered and undone), now fearing death more as it stood more 
imminent, sent their valuables to the bank and hired houses 
in the suburbs, Andheri and Thana, and in other more distant 
places up and down the coast or in the liill-country, whither 
they removed their famiUes, servants, furniture, and horses, 
setthng down for what length of time the plague should re- 
main. And the vaults of the banks became so crowded with 
safes and boxes that no more goods could be received. 

By Christmas time every suburb about Bombay was over- 
filled, and there was not a house in the Konkan to be had for 
quintuple its ordinary rent. Then no houses remained to be 
rented for any money, unless one fugitive bought another off 
who had rented an asylum before him, and he gave forty-fold 
the rent given by the former tenant. Many of the poor could 
find no refuge at all. Even sleeping-room on a veranda in a 
suburb that was deemed healthy cost more for a night than a 
poor man earned in a week. 



308 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

The last week of tlie old year (but chiefly the first month 
of the new) was marked by the spread of panic among the 
mill-hands, who, though contumehous and aggressive in 
respect of compulsory segregation, had in some instances con- 
sented to make use of safety camps of tents or eadjan (huts of 
bamboo and matting). The mills, being well ventilated, large, 
and kept in sanitary order, were particularly free from plague, 
and no special panic had hitherto arisen, as there had been no 
unusual number of deaths amongst the hands. Yet they re- 
mained not so much because they were not afraid as because 
they could not get their money. For it is the practice at all 
times to hold back the pay of the mill-hands for a whole month, 
in order to ensure their remaining till substitutes can be got. 
But in this year, in view of the fact that operatives who did 
not wish to die of the plague might be tempted to sacrifice 
their month's pay and leave without warning, the overseers 
kept back the pay for two whole months. And the same trick 
was played on the hotel servants also by their masters. But 
the mill-hand thus treated was in a very bad way. For ordi- 
narily he hves without any store of money, but the Marwaris,^ 
or money-lenders, and certain u"surious grain-dealers called 
shroffs, knowing him and the circumstances, usually lend 
him grain to eat and even advance him small sums as he needs 
from day to day. And at the end of the month their agent is 
present at the gate when the man is paid and takes from him 
what is owing, and the interest, before he can spend it. But 
now the shroffs and Marwaris had closed their shops and fled 
from the city, and the poor mill-hand whose pay was not paid 
could find no one to lend him grain or money, for even regular 
usurers would not lend to one whose wage was held back for 
so long, since he could give no security and might die of 
plague the next day. 

The mill-hands, therefore, agitated for daily pay, or at least 
for pay at the end of the month. One mill actually paid at 
the end of a month, but the next day it came near to closing, 

1 Literally, " people of Marwar," but used as a common noun to designate 
small money-lenders. 



THE PLAGUE. 309 

for most of the hands, to escape plague and debts, had de- 
camped in the night. But the other mills refused. Moreover, 
the native managers themselves fled from the plague, and this 
added discouragement and new fear to the anger of the work- 
men, so that some fled, giving up aU their pay, and some, 
thinking it as well to die of plague as of starvation, remained 
to agitate for their claim of daily paid wage. By the end of 
the first week of January, forty thousand spindles had stopped, 
and it seemed probable that in a few days more a quarter of a 
million skilled workmen would join those who had fled, and 
like the latter be begging for their hfe, or working for two 
annas a day as charity-laborers on relief-works in the country. 
The mill-owners, however, eventually managed to keep a large 
number of them, for though the former mutually agreed (Jan- 
uary 26) not to yield to the men's demands, yet as each owner 
was more willing to cut the others' throats and save himself 
than abide by his pledge, sundry of them secretly yielded and 
gave daily pay. But this resulted only in the rapid exchange of 
good workmen for bad, since in the increasing panic the old 
hand would often flee at the day's end and some raw workman 
would* be put in his place to bungle and break. But enough 
remained to avert a general closing of the mills, though the 
agitation of the men caused a great deal of trouble. The 
whole matter, however, belongs rather to January, though 
the agitation began in December. The rights of it seemed to 
lie with the men, though, indeed, to grant the demands made 
by them would doubtless have resulted badly for the mills. 
But if the owners, considering the great scarcity, had them- 
selves lent food or money to the workmen and raised their pay 
a little, the latter would probably have remained. But the 
owners and stockholders appeared to think differently. 

The end of December, when plague and famine ruled the 
town, was to many the breaking point of an endurance long 
strained but firm till then. In the case of countless artisans and 
domestic servants, the usurer now ruled them as the viceroy of 
famine. For in India, servants find themselves, and the work- 
men, all living from hand to mouth, suffer most on a rise of 



310 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

prices and are driven to the usurer. But they have to pay him 
180 per cent, interest and in reality more, for after a little time 
they are unable to reckon this (compound) interest and must 
take his word for what is due to him. But when once the 
usurer has the man he never lets him go, and even in ordinary 
years most of the servants and workmen, both in town and 
country, are in this bondage (I inquired particularly and found 
this to be the case everywhere). Whence it happens that all 
the poor man gets he gives to the usurer, save what little is 
requisite for him to live on till another pay-day. But in this 
year, with the shroffs gone, who are concealed usurers, it was 
still worse, since the poor were so completely in the hands of 
the money-lender that they could not live without him ; and there 
was great distress amongst all the wage-earners. Then, too, 
because their shroffs had fled, even the halalkhores early in 
January threatened to go on a strike, but the intervention of 
their muccadums — that is, the bosses of the gangs of work- 
men — prevented this calamity, which would have been serious, 
for had the halalkhores left town there would have been none 
to cleanse it. 

Before the year ended, Bombay was in all respects a most 
woful city. Little discomforts iilled up the crevices between 
big sorrows to make one solid block of misery. The wheels 
of every business were clogged. All labor was at a high 
premium, and to get any work done was difficult. Domestic 
servants left without warning ; in the hotels the " boys " ^ 
begged for wages long due which they could not get, and 
then gave up the struggle in despair. The coolies and carters 
were few ; the barbers and the dhohis or washermen were 
hard to find, and the latter were not to be depended on even 
when found, for they would die on the clothes they had taken 
to wash, and both linen and dhohi would be burned. The 
regular purveyors of the city, — milkmen, butchers, bakers, and 
the hke, — had run away in large numbers ; industries were 
stopped ; trade was almost at a standstill. The cloth-shops and 
grocery-shops of the vanias were bare storehouses; the piece- 

1 Anglicized from bhdi, " brother " (fellow, and so servant). 



THE PLAGUE. 311 

goods merchants had practically shut up. The shops of the 
yarn-merchants, of the metal-merchants, of the merchants of 
brocade, of silk, of goldware and silverware, stood empty all 
day. The booksellers of the Kalbadevi Road put up their 
shutters. None bought what was not absolutely requisite. 
The laughing bazaars were now like cemeteries. Distress 
came with especial hardness upon the clever workmen, whose 
wares attract both the fashion of Bombay and the taste of 
tourists. The gay world bought no gewgaws ; a few tourists 
had indeed come, but almost none remained. Most of them 
had fled from the country; nearly all were gone to safer 
towns at least. Momba Devi^ protected her children no 
more, and the workers in brass and copper had naught to do. 
The carvers of sandal-wood, of blackwood, and of ivory, the 
fine craftsmen in gold and silver, all these could but starve 
or flee. 

Now too began the on-fall of " quick " cases of plague, such 
as obtained in Karachi when the disease first broke out there. 
The hale laborer suddenly died at his work ; the runner 
dropped upon the street ; the servant in good health an hour 
before expired at liis master's side. The policeman fell dead 
on the corner ; the bearer of the corpse became a corpse. 

The number of funerals was dreadful to witness. They 
never ceased. To burial or to fire, the dead were borne every 
hour, and these swift journeys (for the frightened bearers ran 
with their load) continued day after day for weeks together. 
In the second week of January an observer saw enter one 
graveyard no less than a funeral a minute, and the crowded 
pyres of the dead were always burning. 

1 The Mother Goddess of Bombay (Momba), whose title of Great still re- 
mains in the name of the district Mahim. Momba Devi district in the present 
town includes the copper bazaar. Da Cunha says the name of the town was 
spelled both as Mombaym and Bombaym. Momba was a Koli (Dravidian) 
autochthonous divinity. Her old temple on the Esplanade has been razed . The 
modern one has shrines to Qiva and other (Aryan) deities, as well as to Momba- 
devi. Mahim, however, was afterwards settled by the Prabhus of Gujarat, and 
their Aryan temple was sacred to Prabhadevi. But her present abode is in turn 
shared by older deities, Qitaladevi and Khokaladevi, the goddesses of small- 
pox and of cough, respectively. 



312 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

It was not strange that in the excitement weird thoughts and 
fancies obsessed even the soberer citizens. Where segrega- 
tion-camps were the only hope of safety, faddists among the 
English prevented unanimity by raising one objection after 
another and proposing all sorts of absurd panaceas. Some 
queried, and it was gravely debated, whether the whole prin- 
ciple of segregation, as hitherto understood, should not be 
inverted. " Segregate the healthy," they cried ; " let the sick 
stay where they are. Isolate all the hale members of the 
community, put them under guard, confine them to certain 
districts." One sage laid the whole trouble to the Flats and 
wished to have these five hundred acres of filth piled with 
wood, to be burned for a healthy covering. Others seriously 
desired in December to consume Bombay itself with fire, apart 
from certain localities. This suggestion was renewed in 
January. At that tune, Malabar Hill, Camballa Hill, the 
Docks, the Marine Lines, Tardeo, the Market, Upper Kolaba, 
the Mill Districts, the Esplanade, and a few groups of build- 
ings, like the Grant Buildings, were fairly free of plague. It 
was proposed to burn down the whole city with the exception 
of these, chiefly outlying, parts, all the citizens to act as fire- 
men to guard the rest of the town. Another proposal was to 
" establish a general funk " by means of inflammatory placards 
and proclamation by bakari, that is, by drum and crier, among 
the illiterate, as if there were not sufficient fright already. 
But the proposer of this scheme argued that too few natives 
had fled, that the sole means of safety was in laying the 
plague as it had been laid in Mandvie Ward by giving the 
foe no food. If aU the inhabitants were to flee, the plague 
would be starved out. So all talked, but nothing was done. 

The deaths still increased daily in number. By the end of 
the third week of December, the total weekly mortality was 
1416, with 946 as the mortality due to plague. The next 
week, ending December 29, the plague mortality alone was 
about the same as the total mortality of the week before. 

The health officer had at last concluded that a house-to- 
house inspection was imperative (as indeed it was), but 



THE PLAGUE. 313 

when lie found that his department could not attend to this 
and disinfect the slums, and that native officers were not 
obeyed by the people, he called on the British, namely, the Bom- 
bay Artillery Volunteers, for the delicate and dangerous work. 
"Without hesitation they accepted the risk and went unques- 
tioningly from house to house, from cTiawl to chawl, arguing, 
persuading, and insisting on the necessity not only of sanita- 
tion, but in some instances of proper isolation. For the peril 
of the hour forced one fear to yield to another, and cases were 
now quietly segregated even against expostulation, — a task 
rendered easier by the fact that most of the native agitators 
had run away, leaving their poor compatriots to settle the 
question of segregation or death as best they might. The 
work of the Volunteers began on the first day of the new 
year, and as the Health Department had left them to their 
own devices, they were able to enforce of their own Sahib 
authority the principle so long neglected. Much honor is 
due to them, as their act was a wilhng offering of health and 
life. For at this time, though Europeans had not been much 
attacked, yet no one supposed that they were immune, since 
there was no dearth of fatal cases which, through kindly con- 
sideration for the bereaved, had been reported as deaths of 
Europeans, though most of them were in reality amongst 
Eurasian or half-breed families ; nor was it possible to suppose 
that any one could enter the haunt of plague, and labor 
scathless there for many days. But that is what these young 
Englishmen did; for they went personally into the dismal 
chambers that the Health Department had not touched, and 
face to face with the plague, in the presence of its dead and 
dying, despite resistance on the part of those whom they 
would save, let air and light into the foul darkness. In many 
cases they found it necessary to remove roof-tiles and break 
holes for the admission of these unknown luxuries. Then 
they cleaned what had never been cleaned, inspected the 
inmates, removed the sick and the concealed dead, and did 
otherwise all that ought to have been done before. 

The Volunteers made some distressing discoveries, cases of 



314 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

plague uncared for and bodies of plague patients dead for days 
but still concealed, while the relatives, fearing segregation for 
themselves and the destruction of their effects, waited a favor- 
able opportunity to take the corpse in secret from the house. 
Ghastly efforts were made by the natives to hide their dead. 
The corpse would be covered up in a corner, or even held up 
to be counted as a live inmate of the dark hole where the 
family lived. 

But with the renewed suggestion of segregation there came 
new fright into the simple heart of the natives, whom plague, 
famine, blackmail, usury, and the fear of gods already 
tormented, and when they found that they themselves were 
ill, or one of their family, they would on the instant leave 
everything to escape from the city, so that even their dead, of 
whom they are usually very careful, were abandoned in blind 
terror ; and if, as they fled with him from town, the sick one 
died, they left the body in the street. 

But in the case of those who did not try to escape, it was 
pitiful to see them and hear their agony, whenever one of the 
family fell ill in the house and was carried away to the 
hospital. For even when the victims were women or children, 
although in their case no great fear of the Queen's anger was 
entertained, yet the excitement was intense, as the relatives 
clustered about the door, wailing with all the extravagance of 
Oriental woe. But when it was the husband and the father, 
and they thought that his death was certain, if not from the 
plague then by the knife of the Queen's servants in the 
hospital, the despair of the mourners soon got beyond all 
control. Such little tragedies occurred daily, and one which I 
saw myself I will speak of, though it is impossible to depaint 
the distress of the unhappy creatures and the sadness of the 
scene. 

For not only did all the relatives come out and accompany 
the sick man as he was borne into the street, but friends and 
near neighbors, who were either ignorant of danger or heedless 
of contagion, joined them there, and sharing in the sorrow 
swelled the dismal little procession, marching behind the litter 



THE PLAGUE. 315 

and crowding beside it with weeping and all the noisy lamen- 
tation of the East. There were children in the family and 
three women, two old hags and one younger and not uncomely, 
and they all came out and were joined by about a score of 
friends who escorted them. For a little way they went for- 
ward uttering piercing shrieks and invoking vainly the sick 
man to return and the bearers to give him back to his dear 
ones, that they might be beside him when he died. But the 
bearers and the police, who were also there, advanced unheed- 
ing, and the children, falhng behind, began to play in the 
street. Then, however, the women of the famil}'- with stream- 
ing eyes and clasped hands began to entreat the police for 
mercy, calling upon all the gods, their own and the gods of 
those they addressed, to hear them. But after they had 
vainly conjured the police to go no further and seen clearly 
that there was no hope of their prayer prevaihng, they made 
frantic efforts to induce them to promise kind treatment, some- 
times screaming to all the officials together and sometimes 
fastening upon one alone, as if otherwise the authorities would 
be relentless in cruelty. For they besought the police to save 
the dying man from the knife, and let him die in peace, since he 
had committed no crime against the Queen ; but if they would 
not restore him, to remember to tend him well, and do this and 
that for him ; with many incoherent cries besides. But the one 
that was about to die, and this was of all the strangest part 
of the scene, remained perfectly still, or at the most moved 
only his lips, as if (as they are wont to do when dying) he 
were muttering the name of his god, while he lay staring side- 
ways at the crowd without any concern in the tumult of their 
despair, either because he was too weak to speak or too 
stricken with fear to know fully who they were that pressed 
around him. 

But when they were come some forty yards, the pohce at- 
tempted to turn the throng back, not roughly, as they were 
often accused of doing, but with a great deal of pity and 
gentleness, for they themselves were not unmoved by the 
sight about them. Nevertheless, failing in this they finally 



316 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

resorted to pushing, and at last they were compelled to pro- 
hibit the passing of a certain spot, beyond which every advance 
on the part of the mourners was forcibly prevented. So at 
this point the mourners dropped behind, but though they had 
cried vehemently before, yet now when they were no longer 
permitted to see the dying man and knew that love could go 
no further, the passion of their anguish became so painful that 
even a stranger could not endure it. I was afterwards told 
by a Volunteer that one of his men had even fainted at just 
such a scene, and no wonder, for it was horrible. 

But even apart from pity, the whole spectacle was strange 
and had something as if inhuman in it, for it seemed like the 
funeral of a man not yet dead. Nor could one in reality be 
sure that the sick man would have any other funeral when 
shortly, either before arriving there or as an inmate of the 
hospital, he actually died. For sometimes no notification of 
a man's death was made to the family, but unattended and 
uncared for his body was hurried to the grave or burned as 
quickly as possible. 

Not the least striking part of the whole scene, however, was 
this, that except for the relatives and immediate friends no 
one seemed to notice or to care ; and as the family came back 
to their home even they that had gone out with them left 
them ; and their return was through groups of their nearest 
neighbors who yet, like the little ones that had remained be- 
hind, were already chattering and laughing on their verandas, 
just as if nothing had happened. For all had grown callous, 
and not knowing when they themselves might die paid little 
attention to others. 

To a growing carelessness of this sort, I can testify from 
my own experience. For never having happened before to 
see such a sight, the first time I saw a man who was ap- 
parently healthy fall dead in the street I was much startled. 
But when I had roamed about the city for some time (for I 
was there off and on every month but one till the plague 
abated and especially during the great terror of December), I 
would scarcely notice such an accident. And, too, I found 



THE PLAGUE. 317 

that the expectation of death, which at first terrifies, wears 
off just like one's horror of the sudden corpse; and though 
at first one imagines death imminent and is afraid, yet after- 
wards even in the midst of fancied danger one thinks nothing 
of it. 

Men died swiftly in the dying of last year. But they did 
not die without another effort to be saved, and indeed, despite 
callousness, it was not wonderful that mortals should turn 
again to Heaven for relief. Already on December 8 there was 
an universal appeal to God made by sects the most diverse, — 
Hindus, Hebrews, and Mohammedans, who joined in one com- 
mon procession by night, reciting prayers as they marched 
through the city by torchlight. 

The Enghsh, too, had a special intercessory service on 
December 22, to pray for the decrease of the plague, but the 
week after the mortahty rose to the highest point yet attained. 
Then, because no visible effect had been produced by the 
prayers of the Enghsh, the Mohammedans in turn resolved to 
pray. Two great meetings took place, but the first was 
merely to formulate the behef of the community in " prayer 
and not segregation " as the best means of extinguishing the 
plague. " The mosque is our hospital," was the cry. Plague 
was said to be the result of accumulated sin, and holy water 
sprinkled on a scapegoat was therefore reconunended as a 
cure. It was resolved to hold a mass prayer-meeting in accord- 
ance with these principles, but the sacrifice of the goat was 
omitted and only prayers were held. On January 2 a vast crowd 
of Mohammedans foregathered for the event. As no building 
in Bombay could hold them, they met in the open. That scene, 
too, was one not to be forgotten. It was the end of the win- 
ter's day. Beyond the yellow margin of the Esplanade, where 
the blue grackles quarrelled in the grimy trees, stretched the bay- 
water dancing brightly, while far in the distance the Highlands 
to the west rose fairly purple under the low sun. Except for 
the birds it was very still. The noise of the city had almost 
ceased. The multitude had come together silently as if awed. 
They had been collecting all day. They gathered, dark-faced 



318 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

and sombre, in families and wliite-robed bands, slowly arrang- 
ing themselves. But soon they were too numerous for dis- 
tinction ; only they kept, as they knelt compactly side by side, 
a sort of serried order. The service was begun by the princi- 
pal Kazi, who first singly invoked God to avert the arrows of 
His pestilence. Afterwards the whole assembly united in 
prayer, at the beginning with sounds low and monotonous, but 
then louder and so in more varied tones, till when the mania 
of fervor had roused them fully, the excitement shrilled their 
voices and the prayer became a cry and then a yell hke an 
imprecation. One would scream and stop and then another 
would scream, or a dozen would shriek together ; and all the 
time they prayed, they prostrated themselves. So their bodies 
rose and fell in long rows like waves ; while in regular move- 
ment each forehead would be bowed to the dust and then up- 
lifted, the head thrown back, the arms extended to Heaven, 
the black features writhing with the intensity of their suppli- 
cations. Raised a little above them on boxes and stools draped 
for this purpose, stood here and there the gaudy priests lead- 
ing the appeal of the great host, as it bowed and rose, swaying 
rhythmically to the music of the chanted prayers. 

For an hour they thus invoked Allah together, but as the sun 
struck level across the bay, each priest in turn addressed them, 
praising their piety and promising them in God's name speedy 
succor. So they prayed and were comforted ; and after they 
had eaten all the cakes and dates that had been provided, and 
offered each for himself one last supplication, they departed. 

Some of the Hindus also, who had already done so much for 
the gods, were now moved to sacrifice again. On New Year's 
day the wretched fishermen of Worli and Mahim, whose huts 
on the northern shore the plague had recently made more mis- 
erable, having resolved to do what they could to propitiate 
the deity of death, provided themselves out of their scanty 
stores (for they were starving as well as stricken by plague) 
with the offerings which their goddess accepts. After the sun 
had set they entered their boats and stood off, and when they 
were well away and the sudden darkness came on, they drew 



THE PLAGUE. 319 

their craft together. Then hghting torches, which they held 
high aloft, they arose with one accord and prayed to Kali, at the 
same time casting into the sea their sacrifice, which was of milk 
and palm-juice and sweets. When this was done they prayed 
again, with what form of words I do not know surely, but it 
was reported the next day that they had charged the goddess 
to relent for the sake of her own offerings, which, if she should 
prove heedless of their prayers, they would never give her 
again. As a sign of this threat they extinguished their 
torches in the sea and so rowed home. 

Shortly afterwards those Parsees who still lingered in town 
invoked also their own pecuhar gods. First they had pubhc 
jasan or intercessory prayers to the Sun, and a few days later a 
congregation of three hundred met together at Karelwady to 
beseech the mercy and protection of the various Zoroastrian 
divinities. Of all the rites this was in so far most interesting 
as it had to do with the oldest gods in India. For though the 
Parsees themselves have been in India only 1265 years, yet 
their gods are older than the Vedas ; but the great gods of the 
modern Hindus are later, or at least they were received later 
into the pantheon of the ancient Hindus. 

The fire-temple at which the ceremony was performed stands 
near the western sea. There the Parsees first offered prayers 
to the Sun and to Fire, and also to Mithra, who was once a 
sun-god, but is now an attendant divinity. Then they de- 
scended from the temple to the sea, the priests having on their 
richest robes and leading the procession, and there prayed to 
the Spirit of the Waters, who, they beheve, is a goddess of puri- 
fication. For both the Spirit of Fire and the Spirit of the 
Waters are in their estimation purifiers and healers. But 
they offer no sacrifice. So when they had prayed and the 
venerable priest of Zoroaster had said a few words (whereby 
he reminded them that the Prince of Wales had once been 
cured of a grievous illness by means of similar prayers on their 
part) the service was brought to an end. And such services 
were held also elsewhere, wherever the Parsees were who had 
fled from the city, at Surat, at Mhow, and in other places. 



320 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

As I have already said, many of the natives, both the un- 
educated and the half-educated, beheved that the original 
cause of the plague was the insult offered to the Queen's 
statue, and they considered that there had not been any suffi- 
cient apology for this act, which in their mode of thought was 
sacrilegious and aimed against Heaven itself. Toward the 
middle of January, therefore, the following petition, composed 
in the customary English of the better-class natives, was sent 
to the Governor. To understand it fully, it must be remem- 
bered that the prayers here suggested are intended as a dep- 
recation of wrath addressed to the Queen in her capacity as 
earthly representative of the Divine. The petition, it will be 
noticed, is not sectarian, but catholic to a degree undreamed of 
in the ordinary philosophy of the rehgious world. All sects 
and castes are to unite in prayer to a deity named Almighty 
God. This is not meant as a concession to Christianity. The 
title is intended for a general designation of the Supreme, as 
the Hindus call their own Supreme God by the same name, 
and the formula is employed by them and by Mohammedans 
to paraphrase the names of Vishnu-^iva and of Allah. The 
petition distinctly makes the first cause of the plague to be 
the mutilation of the Queen's statue. 

AN HUMBLE APPEAL TO HIS EXCELLENCY THE 
EIGHT HONOURABLE GOVERNOR OF BOMBAY. 

To HIS Excellency the Right Honourable Governor and 
President in Council, Governor of Bombay. 

May it please your Excellency, — The humble petition to alle- 
viate human sufferings for the benefit of the public goodness 
and welfare of the people of Bombay and its vicinities. 

Most humbly declare that at present a disastrous and destruc- 
tive disease, known by the name of Bubonic Plague, is spread- 
ing and prevailing on in Bombay, and hundreds of people are 
dying through its effect every month. It is supposed that the 
cause of the above disease and plague is the rueful and abomi- 
nable act of some one miscreant by doing mischief to the auspi- 



THE PLAGUE. 321 

cious statue of her most Gracious Imperial Brittanic Majesty 
tlie Queen-Empress the Kaiser-i-Hind by blackening and be- 
smearing it out of and in spite and malice and purposely to 
hurt and wound the natural feelings of the loyal British sub- 
jects, to insult and tarnish the glory of her Majesty's auspicious 
name and reign, and has also made a sacrilegious act, and blas- 
phemed the Almighty God with irreverence, and by doing this 
act of high offence and infamy the said abominable mean wretch 
has drawn on himself the general imprecations of the loyal sub- 
jects of the just and benign British Rule. It is therefore most 
earnestly beseeched to his Excellency that his Excellency will 
be pleased and kind enough to order expressly, all and every 
nations and subjects of all and every caste and creed, including 
Europeans, Parsees, Hindoos, Mahomedans, Jews, and Hebrews, 
and all other nations residing under the British sway, and all 
the other subjects of every nations, to suspend and recede from 
all their worldly affairs and business, and to desist from it for a 
day or a few days, as long as his Excellency will think fit, and 
order them all to fervently pray into their public places of 
worship and prayer, such as in churches, agiarees, mandirs, 
mosques, and synagogues, and every other holy places, and 
keep these few days as Sabbaths, and invoke and supplicate 
the merciful Almighty God to get it stopped and extirpate the 
disastrous plague from its root, through the supernatural influ- 
ence, and to preserve and spare the British subjects from un- 
timely dying and draw out from the jaws of death, and by the 
Divine Will and supplication the general health, peace, and 
prospects of the people will be restored, and by it the lives of 
the people will be saved and rescued by its Divine influence. 
By doing this act of public charity it will be deemed a divine 
benediction bestowed on the poor British subjects, and all the 
loyal subject will heartily wish the prosperity of the British 
reign and will always as in duty bound ever pray for the long 
life of their merciful ruler the Gracious Her Majesty. Ambn. 

This petition was not acted upon. But a few days later, on 
January 19, the Hindus performed a saving rite by themselves, 
which consisted chiefly in encircling the town with a stream of 
milk. But I cannot describe it more fully, and must omit 

21 



822 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

also a few other curious rites both performed and merely pro- 
posed about this time, for there were many such ceremonies 
suggested as cures of plague by learned Pundits in various 
parts of the country. Only one incident, since it seems to me 
of special interest, I will mention particularly, and that is 
that in the propitiatory service there was not infrequently a 
wonderful reversion of rehgious behef . For as far as Indra and 
other Vedic gods are concerned, they are lost in the modern 
All-god. But in this year of extremity, the people went back 
to the old god of rain, for famine was harrying the folk as well 
as plague, and this same ceremony which I have just men- 
tioned of encircling a town with milk was performed against the 
famine-demon by the Sheth of Ahmedabad. It was given out 
that he was praying to the great gods as he circumambulated the 
city pouring milk ; but in reahty he prayed to Indra, as I was 
credibly informed by one in authority who knew. And simi- 
larly, I was told by an official who knows Behar well that 
to this day the peasant there prays to " Indra whose wife is 
Kali." So changed but deathless are the old gods. But it 
would be too long a story to tell all that occurred between the 
people and their gods, and what happened as regards the famine 
and the earthquake — for the year was marked also by one of 
the most terrible earthquakes — I must leave out ; only one 
curious fact about the small-pox goddess may perhaps be 
added. For there was small-pox in the Mofussil, and there 
is a goddess Small-pox to whom the people pray. In behalf 
of adults they pray, " O kind goddess of small-pox " (or more 
truly, "O kind Small-pox"), "keep away from us." But for 
babies the mothers pray, " O kind Small-pox, come soon to 
this baby and treat it gently." They believe that every one 
will probably be visited by Small-pox, but that the goddess 
wiU not be hard upon infants, so they hope she will come 
when the children are little. They call her ^itala, " the cool," 
because she brings burning fever, and " kind " because she is 
cruel, as in the case of ^iva. 

But to come back to the plague, the prophecies of the astrolo- 
gers, though often proved false, continued to find credence. 



THE PLAGUE. 323 

The most popular was that the plague would cease with the 
Makar Sankranti hohday, which occurs when the sun enters 
Capricorn, the middle of January. After the middle of Jan- 
uary the most popular prophecy was that the plague would 
cease with the Hoh festival, the middle of March. After the 
middle of March, " next year " was the time set. The means 
proposed by the native astrologer to avert the plague was the 
invocation of certain planets (Mars and Saturn), and the wor- 
shipping of the " wheel of the nine planets." 

The total mortality in the last week of December had been 
1853 ; that in the first week of January was 1711 (plague 
mortahty, 1217). This seems to be a reduction, but a careful 
estimate in the Times of India for the week ending January 5 
shows that the chief plague-hiding diseases are credited in this 
report with 676 deaths above the normal, withal when the 
population was a third to one half less than the normal. But 
there was for a few weeks, owing either to reduction of popu- 
lation or to one of the lulls which occasionally appeared in the 
plague, hke a trough between breakers, a diminution both in 
the plague mortality and in the total mortality, though at the 
' end of this lull the latter rose to a height hitherto unknown, 
for in the week ending February 9 the plague mortahty alone 
was 1371 (total mortahty for the week, 1911). 

During January the aspect of the city was mournful beyond 
description. The throngs of people hurrying to the stations ; 
the death-falls in the street, when no passer-by dared to touch 
the dying man; the pitiful little funerals, where sometimes 
the only mourners were the bearers, and they, feebly chanting 
the shrill dirge, would run rapidly with the uncovered corpse 
lest they died on the way ; occasionally a funeral without a 
bier, but the body was slung on a pole and, it was said, even 
oozed blood ; the starving, emaciated figures huddled together 
on the doorsteps of the wretched tenements ; the frightened, 
suspicious glances with which every one looked on every one 
else in the street ; the general air of crouching before an in- 
visible mahgn power, — these were the marks of the New Year. 
And the physical appearance of the city did not lessen the 



324 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

melancholy effect. The streets, despite all the efforts of the 
Health Department, were a reproach to humanity ; the long 
drought had covered the trees with dust ; they stood gaunt and 
gray-leaved above the sickly grass. All day the sun shone 
hotly, all night it was bitterly cold ; not with the tonic cold of 
the West ; but with the horrible chill of a tomb, of India. 

At this time voluntaryism, a phrase of the occasion, was 
the order of the day. In submitting to voluntary segregation 
there was a great difference between the communities. The 
Khoja sect of the Mohammedans, owing to the influence of 
their leader Aga Khan, showed themselves much more en- 
lightened than the Sunni Mohammedans. The Jains would 
scarcely enter their own hospital. The Hindus had not yet 
resolved to have a hospital, but the municipal sheds were at 
their disposal. These, however, the Hindus, like the Moham- 
medans, did not want to use. The native community that 
acted most sensibly was that of the Parsees. They had an 
excellent hospital, they went to the hospital more readily, 
they opposed segregation less than any other sect or 
nationality. 

But whether the gods had heard or only the Raj across the 
sea, better days were already at hand. The city government 
had proved itself incapable of wrestHng with the storm of 
plague. So now a real gubernator took the city's helm. 

The speech from the throne on January 19 (the day after 
Italy proposed the Venice Plague Conference) did much to 
keep up English courage. It said little in respect of the 
plague, but that little was enough : " Take the most stringent 
measures." The Governor at once (January 20) appointed 
first a special plague officer to inspect the city and " advise " 
the municipal commissioner ; then an assistant health of&cer, 
twenty medical officers, and others deemed necessary. 

In addition to the useful measure of appointing scientific 
experts, both doctors and officers for the purpose of facilitating 
house-to-house visitation, — there were thirty thousand houses 
to be inspected, and the four employed by the health officer 



THE PLAGUE. 325 

had been entirely inadequate, — the Governor early in Feb- 
ruary (the 10th) pubhshed a Notification made possible by a 
special Epidemic Disease Act which had just been passed. 
This Notification authorized, and in fact directed, the municipal 
commissioner, of his own authority and without reference to 
the magistrates, to prohibit the occupation of any building de- 
clared to be unfit for human habitation ; to require abatement 
of over-crowding, the vacation of buildings and premises for 
disinfecting ; to enter deserted buildings forcibly (when they 
were locked up), and to cleanse and disinfect them ; to remove 
the earth of floors, and to cut off water-connections when neces- 
sary; to demolish any building unfit for habitation, and to 
destroy infected articles. Some few of these powers had al- 
ready been assumed. All of them might have been acquired 
long before, had the commissioner taken the initiative, or even 
followed the advice given to him by the government commit- 
tee (appointed to report, when the plague first broke out) to 
apply for greater powers. February was spent in organizing 
and carrying out a campaign against the plague. On February 
26, the Governor, Lord Sandhurst, dehvered a timely speech, 
in which he said in effect : 

" Citizens of Bombay, do not fear the cost of sanitation, nor 
the anger of the greedy wretches whose insanitary houses have 
been held together for rent. Destroy what is unfit for human 
habitation. Kill the plague by destroying its habitat in these 
rookeries. This is what I have been trying to do. Help me 
to continue this work, till we pull down all the foul death- 
traps of the town. Erect sanitary buildings. Broaden the 
streets. Rebuild Bombay, and let her be again in reality, as 
she once was, as she was meant to be by nature, Bombay the 
Beautiful." 

This speech was received with enthusiasm. It brought back 
courage. People felt that at last a man had taken charge. 

On March 5, the Gatacre Committee was appointed by the 
Governor. General Gatacre, the chairman, had been put in 
control of the hutting arrangements at Parel Park, where an 
auxihary hospital was equipped (to which were afterwards 



326 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

sent the convalescents of the over-crowded Arthur Road Hos- 
pital). He was the Executive's right hand in the vigorous 
sanitary reform instituted by the Governor and had already 
done most efficient work. The city health officer was not made 
a member of this committee ; the city commissioner was put on 
the committee, but not as the chairman. By the appointment 
of this committee the sanitation of Bombay was completely 
taken out of the hands of its municipahty. The committee 
was expressly stated to be " subordinate only to Government," 
that is, to the Presidential government. The letter of the 
Governor to the municipal corporation explaining this drastic 
measure concluded with the bland remark : " To do this is no 
slur on local bodies ; it is no blow to local self-government. 
It is simply an Imperial necessity." 

The necessity was stated to be due to the fact that, as the 
plague was now spread over the whole Presidency, it was es- 
sential that the campaign should be conducted with military 
subordination on the part of local bodies. In the formal 
appointment of the committee, the municipal corporation 
were curtly directed " to carry into effect without delay any 
measures which may be ordered by the committee." In other 
words, the city corporation were reduced to a political cipher. 

Under this order municipal apathy vanished. The corpora- 
tion hurriedly raised legal objections to their own virtual sup- 
pression, as implied by the somewhat extraordinary wording 
just cited, but in the end they submitted as gracefully as they 
could. Thereafter, as regards the plague, the municipality 
dropped out of sight. 

Times were changed now in Bombay. Four hospitals — the 
Arthur Road, the Parel auxiliary, the European General, and 
the Kamatipur shed-hospital — were open to plague patients, 
and the natives were told that the sick would have to be iso- 
lated, whether they would or no. Segregation was actually 
enforced. Then the plague began to decline. Other huts 
were erected, at Tank Bunder, Chaopatty, Kamatipur, etc. 
To these were sent the destitute and those who had been in 
contact with plague cases. But many more huts were built. 



THE PLAGUE. 327 

By April there were forty-one hospitals in the city (besides the 
sectarian hospitals) and six hundred segregation huts. The 
hospital staff was strengthened. Nurses from England were 
cabled for. Woman inspectors and physicians were appointed 
ior purdah women. For the first time medical certificates were 
insisted on. Hacks, if used to convey plague-patients, were no 
longer permitted to return undisinfected to their stand, an 
abuse which, despite all protests, was current during the 
winter. Restrictions were put upon returning inhabitants 
liable to bring disease back with them ; first on those coming 
back by ship, then, in April, on those by rail. An army of men 
were sent out to inspect and cleanse the ten districts into which, 
to facihtate sanitary work, the city had been divided; a re- 
sponsible officer was put in charge of each district. An extra 
staff of nearly a thousand men was created in the health de- 
partment ; of four thousand in the engineering department. 
The idle military were put to work. Concealed cases of plague 
were artfully detected by means of official surprise-parties, after 
the locality had already been inspected. The corporation were 
told that if they did not at once settle the question of the dis- 
posal of cutchra, over which they had been dawdling for six 
months, the question would be settled for them. That also 
which the corporation had never had sense or sympathy to do, 
the higher government now did. It ordered compensation 
to be paid, not as a right, but as a grace, to " the very poor," 
whose infected goods were destroyed for the public weal. Fin- 
ally, in the middle of April, one crowning abuse was stopped. 
The Mohammedan Grant Road burial-ground was closed by 
order of the Governor. 

It must not be supposed that everything was accomplished 
at once. The number of cases of plague still concealed, de- 
spite the most careful surveillance, gives a hint of the numbers 
not detected under a less vigilant system of inspection. Even 
blackmail was still practiced, but the only case reported was 
that of municipal employees, who in April took six rupees as 
a bribe and let a godown (storehouse) go free of inspection. 

The mettle of their new rein-holder was soon tested by the 



828 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

balkiest of the natives, the Sunni Mohammedans. But an in- 
timation of strength had been given before this. The great 
rehgious Valkeshvar Fair of March 1, and the popular dehrium 
of the Hoh Festival, which inaugurates the return of spring 
and takes place on the full moon of the same month, were 
both looked forward to with anxiety, as had been indicated in 
a letter addressed to the Governor on February 15 by the 
Chamber of Commerce. The former celebration, however, 
was now restricted by the express orders of the government 
("in consultation with the municipal commissioner," for this 
officer figured in proclamations) ; while the Holi procession 
was absolutely prohibited. As for the Mohammedans, the im- 
perial government itself prohibited the still more dangerous 
Haj pilgrimage (to Mecca), to the great grief and indignation 
of the Mohammedan community, who saw in this act only 
" an invidious distinction ; " though in this the Sunnis opposed 
their own chief, Abdur Rahman, Amir of Afghanistan, who 
supported the action of the English authorities regarding the 
Haj. But it was left for the Sunnis of Bombay in particular 
to emphasize their own unfitness for civilized society. No 
sooner had the new law gone into effect than there began 
(March 15) a series of angry mass-meetings, to protest and 
petition against the measures of segregation and inspection. 
In vain the Governor, in refusing to grant the petition, ex- 
plained the situation at length, and assured the Sunnis that 
their feelings, especially in regard to purdah women, would be 
respected. The Sunnis sent in another petition more imperti- 
nent than the first (for both petitions virtually said, " we 
will not "), and then had the impudence to declare roundly 
that nothing would induce them to 5deld the point. After the 
loss of much time spent in kind and courteous explanations 
the Governor, on April 5, told the Sunnis peremptorily that 
they would have to obey. They obeyed at once. Some of 
their wealthy leaders had been converted to common-sense 
long before and supported the government, both in trying to 
persuade their ignorant fellows and in generously building 
hospitals for them. But these gentlemen, who were really 



THE PLAGUE. 329 

enlightened, had little influence as compared with the clerical 
leaders, most of whom were incorrigible. On the receipt of 
the definitive refusal to exempt Mohammedans from the com- 
mon law of safety, " a would-be Ghazi " sent General Gatacre 
a letter, informing him that he would be decapitated within 
a fortnight owing to his zeal in enforcing sanitary regulations. 
But the barking dog did not bite. The Calcutta Moham- 
medans imitated the Bombayans on April 9, when five thou- 
sand of the former made a formal protest against the same 
sanitary regulations, then about to be put in force all over 
India. 

March had opened with a drop in the weekly account with 
death. For the first time since December the plague mortality 
stood in three figures. Three weeks later the deaths had 
fallen from this point of nine hundred and thirty-eight to six 
hundred ; by April 20 they were three hundred and ten ; by 
the first of May there were only one hundred deaths in the 
week. By the end of March the returning inhabitants nearly 
balanced in number the outgoing, and after that the former 
were in excess. By the end of April the plague was almost 
extinct. Not the warmer weather alone was the cause, but 
the new commander and the means he used. In the latter half 
of March appeared a new red sign in Bombay, the letters 
U H H painted on the front of houses, Unfit for Human 
Habitation, but fit homes for plague. Hundreds of these 
houses were condemned, and the wretched inhabitants were 
hutted in the country. But the monsoon expected in June 
put a stop to the work, lest more people should be found to be 
hutted at the beginning of the rains than could be roofed again. 

After the Governor took control there was less excite- 
ment, and nothing of religious moment occurred, for finding 
that danger was departing men no longer took the same 
interest in the gods. Only early in the spring some of the 
thakorjis or Vishnu idols, whom the priests had fed and prayed 
to all winter, till at last they could wait for succor no longer, 
were removed from the town, their priests fleeing just as the 
tide was about to turn. Yet so great was their faith that they 



330 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

carried with them the gods they thought had been deaf to 
their prayers. 

In other respects also this season was devoid of memorable 

events, save that riots had occasionally to be suppressed. 

But when sanitation and segregation were resisted the rioters 

were put down easily, for the Governor was not afraid, and the 

"people yielded as soon as they became convinced of this. 

By June the plague was stamped out of the city. Then 
became apparent the danger which had lurked in the sign of 
recovery. So long as lasted the careful inspection of those 
who poured back into the town, there was no risk. Bombay 
at the end of spring was actually free of plague. For a whole 
week in June no death due to it occurred in the city. 

But the end was not yet. Those thousands of refugees who 
had carried the plague with them and planted it over the whole 
Presidency, up and down the coast, north and south and in- 
land, east as far as Nasik and the Khandeis district — but 
the main plague outside the Presidential town was at Karachi, 
Bulsar, and Poona — and still further, beyond the Presidency, 
at Bangalore in the south, where it had entered as early as 
November, at Gwahor, Agra, and even Lahore in the north 
— those thousands returned. And in returning from other 
districts, which were still plague-smitten, month after month, 
when no longer controlled by any adequate inspection, for the 
state government had accomplished its task and resigned its 
hold, — in returning to a populace as determined as ever to 
resist segregation or sanitation and to a municipahty too 
weak to enforce either means of safety, they brought back 
the Great Death to Bombay. 



Written during the winter of 1896-97 and completed the 
end of June, 1897, soon after I came back from India. I have 
since added a few notes and the last two paragraphs. Of the 
history of the plague subsequent to its recrudescence in the 
city I have no knowledge, and though I saw it elsewhere than 
in Bombay it would extend this sketch unduly to tell of its 



THE PLAGUE. 331 

course through the country at large. Nor do I believe that 
after the first few months, barring the tragedy at Poona, 
where for a tune all the ways of the East and West ran 
counter, there were either elsewhere or in Bombay the same 
terror and excitement or any events that revealed the strange 
heart of India more clearly than those I have here tried to 
describe. For outside of Bombay, the authorities, already 
warned, paid less attention to the remonstrance of ignorance 
and so mastered the plague more quickly; and later, when 
the Great Death crept back into Bombay, the doctrine of 
fatahsm became, as it seems, the accepted faith even of those 
to whom it was not native, and the whole city relapsed 
into apathy, letting the plague do as it would and waiting 
till it should choose to go. But of the first few months I 
have ventured to write in the belief that the account may 
perhaps interest those who are either pleased with supersti- 
tions or curious in regard to what is doing in India. For in 
the latter regard, though the stage was small, there is no 
reason to suppose that on a larger one the political actors 
would play different parts, and in the former there is much 
to fascinate the student of antiquity, as he sees how the dead 
past of Europe is still a living reality in the East. 



332 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 



NOTE ON THE PLAGUE. 

It was stated in September, 1896, by practitioners of Bombay 
that ninety-six per cent., some said ninety-nine per cent., of those 
at first attacked by plague in the city had died. This was before 
any systematic practice had been adopted, and when indeed most 
of the cases were not treated at all. The ratio is surprisingly 
high, but it does not seem to be much exaggerated. The best 
means of discovering how many died when left to themselves is 
to reckon not on the basis of uncertain figures in a great city, but 
on that furnished by a small group, the numbers of which can be 
controlled and which no doctors have tampered with. At The- 
ronda, near Eewadanda in the Kolaba District of the Presidency, 
there were 173 deaths out of 177 cases of plague , until the intro- 
duction of medical men (native doctors can be ignored) and sani- 
tary regulations lowered the proportion. In Lower Damaun, a 
pest-hole in the Portuguese territory, even with the best medi- 
cal attendance there were, in April, 140 deaths a week amongst 
a population of 9000. It is interesting to compare Thucydides' 
estimate. Out of 4000, in less than forty days 1050 died at Poti- 
daea. Other points of comparison with the Attic plague will 
occur to the classical student, — its growing strength as winter 
came on, the synchronous famine and earthquake (in the North), 
the tendency of other diseases to run into the plague, the endur- 
ance of the body till its sudden collapse, the paralysis that 
occasionally resulted instead of death , etc. It was unfortunate 
that Dr. Haffkine's serum was not ready before the middle of 
January. When first tried on the prisoners in the jail (Jan- 
uary 30) it seemed to be really a preventative. At least, there 
were 170 patients who were not inoculated, and 150 who were, 
and amongst the former there were afterwards twelve cases of 
plague and six deaths, while amongst the latter there were two 
cases and no deaths. Dr. Yersin did not come upon the scene 
with his antidote till March 5, when the plague was already in 
hand. 



NEW INDIA. 

Fkom the later Vedic age, when the king who was " eaten 
by the priests " was in turn the " eater of his people," a 
striking metaphor has been preserved. Taken from the 
chief architecture of the day, it describes the " altar " of 
the king's state. In this altar, the priests and the nobles are 
" the bricks ; " the common people, the agricultural class, 
are only " the filling between the bricks." Unmentioned 
remain here those elsewhere known as " the black mass," 
the slaves, who have no place at any Bralmianic altar, human 
or divine. 

Beneficent as was Buddhism, in its doctrine of " non-in- 
jury " and in its over-riding of caste-distinctions, it was routed 
by Brahmanized civilization, though the latter was deeply 
affected by it. Under the later Brahmanic kings the people 
were nominally protected. The king took one sixth of the 
farmer's grain. But the king ruled through vicegerents, 
military commanders who were also revenue-collectors. In 
Max Miiller's opinion they were simply revenue-collectors, but 
even if this extreme view be wrong, as I think it is, there 
remains the fact that these vicegerents, called Supervisors, 
governed for the king over ten, an hundred, a thousand towns, 
and their support was drawn from the towns. The rapacity 
of royal officials was a favorite literary theme, and the whole 
system was one that clearly made for secret extortion. Manu 
says that the king's officials " are usually rascals, who, though 
appointed to protect, steal the property of others." In feudal 
states, the native kings sometimes took half the nobles' reve- 
nue, drawn from the doubly impoverished peasants. 

The Mussulmans came next, whose rule was " anarchy and 



334 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

oppression." Two Moghuls are credited with virtues, the 
*' apostate " Akbar and his grandson, Shah Jahan. Under 
them flourished the Zamindars. Akbar's great revenue rose 
steadily, both under his son, a dissolute hypocrite, and under 
his magnificent grandson, wliose costly military expeditions, 
court luxury, religious endowments, and own fabulous fortune 
were paid for by a tax that never ceased to increase tiU. Aur- 
angzeb, the " Louis XIV. of India," completed the misery of 
the people. There were too Afghan kings who are wished 
back by the believer in antique felicity. Such was Firoz Shah, 
of whom a modern critic of present conditions, a Hindu sigh- 
ing for the past, ingenuously writes : " The historian of this 
monarch expatiates on the happy state of the raiyats who hved 
in that day, the great content of the people, and the general 
happiness of the realm. This historian is said to be a writer 
not much to he trusted " (italics mine). Of course, no court 
historian can be trusted. 

So we are told by travellers, dazzled by the luxury of Ori- 
ental courts seen for the first time, that those days of rapine 
and oppression were blissful days, and we are given the im- 
pression that the peasant who paid for the luxury was as 
happy as the king and honored traveller who enjoyed it. Yet 
there are awkward passages even in the records of such trav- 
ellers. Thus, one of them is cited to show how great was the 
welfare of the Hindu under the Mahratta ; but midway in his 
tale of brave deeds and fine temples we stumble over this : 
" The praise of good administration is rarely merited by Mah- 
ratta chieftains." 

But not all Hindus extol the past at the expense of the 
present. All extol the past, to be sure, and see in it virtues 
which a more critical view must qualify ; but some, while not 
wanting in the pensive piety of propappolatry, so to speak, 
nevertheless see clearly that the best foreign Raj India has 
ever had is that of to-day. One of these is Mr. Dadabhai, 
whose words carry especial weight because he has been for 
more than forty years an avowed opponent of the accepted 
British polity. He sees, too, in the failure to appoint Hindus 



NEW INDIA. 335 

to high offices a violation of an imperial pledge,^ so that he 
has much to blame in England's course. Yet he says, in 
words which I italicize because, coming from a Hindu, they 
more than counterbalance the many diatribes emanating from 
Occidental reformers : " There has not been a nation, who, as 
conquerors, have, like the English, considered the good of the 
conquered as a duty, or felt it as their great desire.'''' And 
again he says, speaking of his own wisest countrymen: '■'■They 
know that a real regeneration, civilization, and advancement of 
India materially, morally, and politically, depends upon a long 
continuance of the British rule." 

This is the behef of the best thinkers to-day in India. There 
are Hindus, simple malcontents, who breathe out only hatred 
of the foreign Raj. Half-educated, they do nothing to en- 
lighten their countrymen. Reckless agitators, scurrilous 
editors, disappointed place-hunters, they are intellectual mon- 
grels, a bastard brood born of a too facile intercourse between 
East and West. But there are others, educated Hindu patriots, 
sons of their age, who weigh well past and present conditions, 
neither sparing adverse criticism nor withholding praise. 
These are they whose words should be heard, not only by the 
public, but in the councils that direct the fate of their country. 
Their number, happily, is increasing. 

India's discord was England's strength. The Hindu religion 
opposed the Mohammedan rehgion, the Hindus numerically 
strong but not belligerent, the Mohammedans belhgerent but 
numerically weak. But to-day there are issues in India more 

1 The royal pledge (of 1858) is as follows : " It is our further will that, so 
far as may be, our subjects, of whatever race or creed, be freely and im- 
partially admitted to offices in our service, the duties of which they may be 
qualified, by their education, ability, and integrity, duly to discharge." The 
saving clause is so far as may he, which is apparently interpreted to mean, 
" so far as is wise to bestow offices on those who might oppose the policy of 
the government." Little has been done to redeem this qualified promise, 
partly because the British fear native opposition in council. Caution in this 
regard cannot be blamed, but it would mark the desirable beginning of a 
broader imperial policy to secure some representation for so much taxation. 
Mr. (Naoroji) Dadabhai's words, cited above, will be found on pp. 201, 202, of 
his Poverty and Un-British Rule in India. 



336 INDIA OLD AND NEW. 

important than the formulse of ancient creeds. Divide et im- 
pera is ceasing to be a useful rule of thumb. The worshipper 
of Allah and the worshipper of Vishnu-(^iva have found that 
they have a common ground to stand upon. That ground is 
national unity. And the more closely the separate parts of 
India knit themselves together, the more imperative is the 
necessity for England to let India know definitively whether 
the good she has done in India in the past is but the earnest 
of what she will do for her hereafter. 

May the heart of that nation which has done so much for 
India's welfare and yet wrought her, not always unwittingly, 
so many injuries, be moved to unite with her for the perma- 
nent good of both. For, thanks to England, there is a New 
India, no longer enslaved but free, no longer blinded but 
enlightened, not perfect but striving for perfection, weak 
but great, potentially strong, awaking to-day to the full con- 
sciousness of a glorious past and the possibihty of a still more 
glorious future. Old India endured and dreamed of God. 
Her bastards revile and dream of themselves. But New India 
thinks, her dream is of the future. And what is this noble 
dream? She dreams not of independence, but of political 
equality based on moral likeness. She seeks to prove that in 
fiscal and judicial administration all native officials can, with- 
out European supervision, be as incorruptible as are British 
officials, claiming that to proved ability and integrity is due a 
recognition of the Indian's right to share in the government 
of the Indian's country. So may her dream be accomphshed, 
and may England, even at some seeming cost, be ready to 
meet her halfway, proving in her turn, and before it is too 
late, that she cares less for revenue than for righteousness. 



INDEX. 



22 



INDEX. 



Long vowels in Sanskrit words are here covered with a makron, in other 
words with a circumflex. Short a is pronounced like u in punch ; the cor- 
responding long vowel, like aw, Panjab and Mahabharata, for example, being 
pronounced punjawb, and muhawb-hawrata, respectively. Short a is frequently 
transcribed by e or o as well as by a and u. Thus Bengal and bungalow, 
bostan and bwstan (garden). Menu and Manu, bwnia, and vania. Europeans 
usually mispronounce long a, for example in Raja, which should be pro- 
nounced rawja, the w sound (compare dance, 'daunce') being antique as well 
as modern, as shown by the interchange of dvd, dvdu (duo), dada, dadau 
(dedi) in Vedic forms. Sanskrit e and o are always long. 



AgoKA, 122. 

Agvaghosa, 135. 

Aga Khan, 324. 

Agni, 93. 

agrahara, 224. 

agriculture, 211 ff. 

ahinsa, v. non-injury. 

Akbar, 244, 334. 

Akhyana, tale, 71. 

Alexander, 98. 

Alexandria, 123. 

Amaru, 61. 

Anacreon, 62. 

animal-gods, 107. 

anustubh (verse), 42. 

Apo'lio Bunder, 289. 

ApoUonius of Rhodes, 67, 71 ; ro- 
mancer, 124. 

Apsarasas, 97. 

Arjuna, the White Knight, or Silver 
Knight, the ideal hero of the great 
epic, 58, 72, 76. 

Artillery Volunteers, 313. 

Asita, 128. 

Atharva Veda (the fourth Veda), 23, 
24. 

Auf recht, 26. 

Aurangzeb, 245, 334. 

avatar, defined, 105. 

Baden-Powell, 206 ff. 
Bagalya, 95. 
Bagh Deo, 112. 
Bardesanes, 124. 



Barth, 164. 

Battlestrong, yudhisthira, name of the 

Pandava (Pandu) emperor, 72 ff. 
Beas river, 48. 

Bhagavad Gita, gitd, 72, 148 ff. 
Bhaiach^ra village, 227. 
Bhairava, Bhairoba, 101. 
bhakti, 148. 

Bharata, brother of Rama, 80 ff., 91. 
Bharata, for Maha-Bharata (the great 

epic), q. V. 
Bhartrhari, 60 ff. 
Bhatias, 185. 
Bhimasena, god, 97. 
Bhiits, 97. 
Birs, 97. 

Bombay, described, 266 ff. 
boy, bhai, 310. 
Brhaspati, 222. 
Buddha, 105, 120 ff. 
Buddhacarita, 128, 135. 
Buddhism and Christianity, 122 ff. 
Biihler, 223. 

bunia or bania, same as vania, q. v. 
Burnell, 243. 
busti (basti, dwelling), 268. 

gAKTl, 111. 

^akuni, " the Hawk," name of a Kan- 
dahar epic character, 71 ff. 
Qakuntala, 60. 
cchotamari, 266. 
chaudhari, 200. 
chawls, 268 ff. 



840 



INDEX. 



Cholas, 242. 

Christ in India, 120 ff. 

Christ-child, 162. 

Christmas, date of, 166. 

Christophoros legend, 166. 

Chunder Sen, 105. 

Qiladitya, 167. 

gitala(devi), 100, 115, 311, 322. 

Citrakuta, name of a mountain, 87. 

givaji, 105, 243. 

9loka, epic verse, 64, 71. 

Cloud-Messenger, meghadiita, title of 

a poem by Kalidasa, 61. 
cremation, 304. 
Crooke, 99, 108. 
crore, 273. 

cubbonize (from Cubl)on), 255. 
cutchra, 271. 

Da^aratha ("having ten war-cars"), 

King of Oudh, 80 ff. 
Da Cunha, 91, 276, 306, 311. 
Dadabhai, Naoroji, 334 ff. 
Dakhmas, 305. 
Daityas, 97. 
Dandaka, name of the great forest 

south of the Ganges, 84. 
Dante, 90. 

Davids, Rhys, 131, 136. 
Dawn, 32, 38, 93 ff. 
dhobis, 310. 
dialects, 24. 

disease-demons (v. ^itala), 99, 311. 
Divali (dipali), 299 ff. 
drama (v. epic), 60, 70. 
drought, 235 ff. 
Dubois, 106. 
Duff, 91, 237, 243 ff. 
Dutt, 237 ff. 
Dyaus, 93. 
Dunds, 103. 

East-wind (god), 95. 

elves, rbhus, 98. 

epic, 25, 56, 67 ff ., 69 ff. ; modern epic, 

91. 
Essenes, 139. 
Eusebius, 124. 

Famine, 230 ff. 
famine-relief fund, 254. 
fetish, 108. 
Eiroz (Feroz) Shah, 334. 



Gandharvas, 97. 

Ganges, 39, 68. 

Gatacre, General, 325. 

gathas, 29. 

Garuda, 110. 

gayatri (verse), 42. 

Geldner, 169. 

ghost-gods, 102. 

Gita, V. Bhagavad Gita. 

Gnosticism, 147; Gnostic monument 

in Syracuse, 124. 
gobar, 270. 
gods, study of, 92 ff. 
goldsmiths, 171. 
Gondaphares, 141. 
Grace of God, 147. 
Gubernatis, Count, 90. 
guilds, 169 ff. 
Guimaraes, epic of, 91. 
gumasta, 187. 

Haffkine, Doctor, serum of, 332. 

halalkhores, 271, 310. 

Hardaur Lala, 103, 112. 

Hardheart, duhgdsana, " hard to rule," 
a Kuru prince, 78. 

Hastina (also Hastina-pura), the 
Kurus' capital, a town fifty-three 
miles N. E. of Delhi, formerly on 
the Ganges, which has now left it 
seven miles away. It is now a mere 
ruin. The name is said to mean 
Hastin's town or perhaps elephant- 
town, 71 ff. 

Hesiod, 60. 

Himalaya, 32, 128. 

Hitopade?a, 60, 96. 

Holdich, Colonel, 101. 

Holi, 06, 328. 

Hunter, 243 ff. 

Hyndman, 237, 254. 

Iliad, 67, 88 ff. 

impartible property, 217. 

Indra, 32, 37. 48, 52, 322. 

Indraplain, Indrapat, the Pandavas' 

capital, the original site of Delhi 

(now five miles away) on the Jumna. 

The name means Indra's plateau or 

place, 71 ff. 
Invincible, duryodhana, name of a 

Kuru prince, 72 ff. 
irrigation, 238 ff. 



INDEX. 



341 



Jackson, 130. 

Jahan, 243, 334. 

Jains, 171 ff. 

JanmastamI, 162. 

japa (prayer, japa, rose), 142. 

Jatakas, 133 ff. 

Jishnu Krishna (jisnu), 162. 

joint-family, 215. 

Jolly, 207. 

Jumna (yamuna), 39, 52, 103. 

Kabaxas, 198. 

kabandhas, 103. 

Kaegi, 151. 

Kaikeyi, wife of Da^aratha, 80 fE. 

Kali, in this form a dice-demon, 72; 
in the form Kali, the wife of Qiva, 
277 ff. ; Kali, wife of Indra, 322. 

Kalidasa, 60 ff. 

Kansa, 163. 

Karma doctrine, 127. 

Katha, " tale," equivalent to Akhyana, 
epic narrative, 91. 

Kavya, artificial, artistic poetry, 71. 

khandias, 306. 

Khojas, 324. 

Khokaladevi, 311. 

Krishna (krsna, " dark" ), as a mascu- 
line, ending in a, the name of an 
avatar of Vishnu ; as a feminine, 
ending in a, the wife of the Pandus, 
72, 76 fE., 105, 120 ff. 

Krishnaism and Christianity, 146 ff. 

kundadhara, cloud-god, 96. 

Kurus, anglicized plural for kauravas, 
sons of Kuru, epic heroes, 71 ff. 

Lakh, 273. 

Lakshman, laksmana,hTotheT of Hama, 

86 ff. The name means " having 

lucky signs," Felix. 
Lalbhai Dalpatbhai, Sheth, 176, 205. 
. land-grants, 224. 
land-tenure, 206. 
Lanka, Ceylon, 88. 
Lalita Vistara, 128, 131, 134 ff., 136. 
Latham, 272. 
Lely, 179 ff. 

Llamaistic Church, 141 ff. 
Logos, 147. 
Lorinser, 151. 
Lotus (of True Law), 131 ff., 134 ff. 



Love, god of, 63. 

Lyall, 243, 247. 

lyric poetry, 36 ff., 69. 

Madonna-woeship, 162 ff. 

Mahabharata, 67 ff. 

mahajanas, 173, 178. 

mahamari, 266. 

Mahrattas, 242, 334. 

Maine, H., 206 ff. 

Mandara (Battenberg), 58. 

Manthara, slave of Kaikeyi, 80 ff. 

Manu, 170, 207, 210 ff., 215, 218 ff.,333, 

Marwaris, 308. 

Megasthenes, 246 ff. 

Meshris, 177. 

Metres, 39, 71. 

Moghuls, 244 ff. 

Mohammedans (v. Sunni, etc.), 168. 

Momba Devi, 100, 311. 

Mombaym, original form of Bombay, 

311. 
momiai, 291. 
money-lender (same as usurer), 252 ff., 

259 ff., 308, 310. 
monotheism, 168. 

muccadum, boss-workman, 201, 310. 
Miiller, Max, 92, 128,133, 143, 151, 333. 

NIgas, 107. 

naigamas, 170. 

Nakula, brother of Battlestrong, 76* 

Nala, 72. 

nasasalars, 306. 

Nibelungen, 67. 

Nissi, Night-goddess, 96. 

non-injury doctrine, 149, 212, 333. 

nyat (jati), 201, 205. 

Ojha, teacher (from upadhyaya), wiz- 
ard, 103 ff. 
Oppert, 175. 
Oudh (from ayodhya), 68, 80, 172 ff. 

Pali forms, 46; tradition, 136. 

Panch (punch), Panchayat, 178 ff. 

Pandus, anglicized plural form of 
Pandu, properly Pandavas, " sons 
of Pandu" (the Pale), epic heroes, 
71 ff. 

parikti (verse), 42. 

Pantaenus, 124, 141. 



342 



INDEX. 



Parcival, 67. 

Parsees (v. Dakhma), 319, 324. 

Parusni, 52. 

Patel" 178, 227. 

Pattidari village, 227. 

Pi§acas, 103. 

Pinjra Pol (" cage- yard "), 191 ff. 

plague, cases of, 265 ; symptoms, 276 ; 

mortality, 293, 297 ff., 332. 
prasada, 147 ff. 
priests as gods, 105. 
Proctor-Sims, 180 ff. 
Punjab (Panjab, " Five Eivers "), 30 fE., 

172. 
Purana, Puran, "ancient" (tale), 91, 

162'. 
purdah (parda) women, 288 ff. 
purohita, 104. 
Piisan, 39. 

EAiTAT-village, 220, 227 fE. 

rajakali, 241. 

Rama, hero of the Ramayana, 80 ff., 

105. 
Ramayana ("journeys of Rama"), 

67 ff., 80 ff. 
Ranuji Sindia, 91. 
rats and plague, 282. 
Ravi, 52. 

Rig (rg) Veda, 23 ff. 
rosary, origin of, 142. 
Rudra, 46. 
rupee, 272. 

Sahadeva, brother of Battlestrong, 
76. 

Salisbury, Lord, 2.33, 257. 

Saman, Sama Veda, 23. 

Sandhurst, Lord, 325. 

sattas, 198. 

Schroeder, L. von, 67. 

Severalty village, 227 ff. 

Seydel, 125 ff., 132, 143. 

Sheth (grestha), 172 ff., 177, 179. 

Shravaks (gravakas), 177 ff. 

shroffs, 308, 310. 

Sita, Rama's wife, 87 ff. The name 
means "furrow," as Rama is'" sun," 
in the allegorical base of the Rama- 
story. 

sixth-taker, title of king, 242. 



Skambha and Skandha, 98. 

Small-pox goddess (v. ^itala), 322. 

Soma, 33, 40, 93. 

Spencer, H., 92. 

strikes, 202. 

Sudas, 52 (the accent here indicates 

metrical quantity). 
Sunnis, 324, 328. 
Sutlej river, 48. 
Suttee (sati), 104. 

Taxation, 238 ff., 333 ff. 

Thucydides, 332. 

tiger, use of, 2.30 ff. 

Times of India, 272 ff., 280, 29T. 

totem, 108. 

Towers, v. Dakhmas. 

trees, animate, 95. 

tristubh (metre), 44, 71, 

Unitaeianism, 160 ff. 
Upanisads, 24, 25, 28, 55, 57, 146. 
usurer, v. money-lender. 

Vac, 98, 147. 

vadi, guild-hall, 187. 

Vai^ya (v. Wesh), 212. 

Vanias (bunyas), 185, 200. 

Varuna, 32, 38, 100. 

Vasistha, 51 ff., 219. 

Vata, 47. 

Valmiki, 69. 

Vergil, 67. 

Vi^vamitra, 48 ff. 

Vidura, 75. 

villages, kinds of, 227 ff. 

Vishnu (visnu, " flyer "), sun-god and 

the Supreme, 79, etc. 
Vyasa (nom. form vyasas), 69, 159. 

Weber, 162 ff. 
Wesh (vai9ya), 200. 

Yajnavalkta, 219. 
Yajus, Yajur Veda, 23. 
Yama, 40, 102. 
Yamuna, v. Jumna. 
Yersin, Doctor, 382. 

Zamindae, zamindari, 245 ff., 258, 334. 
Zoroaster, 29, 128, 129. 



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